"I have generally had the satisfaction of seeing those whom I have known to be wicked most severely punished," he replied, in a voice that made Clémence shudder. "But the day after this unhappy event what did your husband say?" "He confessed, with singular candour, that his two former marriages had been broken off in consequence of the families becoming acquainted with the secret of his fearful malady. Thus, then, after having been twice rejected, he had the shameful, the unmanly courage, to drag a third poor victim into the abyss of misery the kind intervention of friends had preserved the others from. And this is what the world calls a gentleman and a man of honour!" "For one so good, so full of pity to others, yours are harsh words." "Because I feel I have been unworthily treated. M. d'Harville easily penetrated the girlish openness of my character; why, then, did he not trust to my sympathy and generosity of feeling, and tell me the whole truth?" "Because you would have refused him." "This very expression proves how guilty he was, and how treacherous was his conduct, if he really entertained the idea of my rejecting his hand if informed of the truth!" "He loved you too well to incur the risk of losing you." "No, no, my lord; had he really loved me, he would never have sacrificed me to his selfish passion. Nay, so wretched was my position at that time, and such was my desire to quit my father's roof, that, had he been candid and explicit with me, it is more than probable he would have moved me to pity the species of misery he was condemned to endure, and to sympathise with one so cut off from the tender ties which sweeten life. I really believe, at this moment, that, touched by his open, manly confession, as well as interested for one labouring under so severe an infliction of the Almighty's hand, I should scarcely have had the courage to refuse him my hand; and, once aware of all I had undertaken, nothing should have deterred me from the full and conscientious discharge of every solemn duty towards him. But to compel this pity and interest, merely because he had me in his power, and to exact my consideration and sympathy, because, unhappily, I was his wife, and had sworn to obligations, the full force of which had been concealed from me, was at once the act of a coward and a wrong-judging mind. How could I hold myself bound to endure the heavy penalties of my unfortunate marriage, when my husband had trampled on every tie which binds an honourable mind? And now, my lord, you may form some little idea of my wedded life; you are now aware how shamefully I was deceived, and that, too, by the person in whose hands I unsuspectingly placed the future happiness of my whole existence. I had implicitly trusted in M. d'Harville, and he had most dishonourably and treacherously repaid my trustfulness with bitter and irremediable wrongs. The gentle, timid melancholy which had so greatly interested me in his favour, and which