“No! no! I shall not stop now until you have heard all. I have gone too far already. Amongst Leonora’s acquaintances was a young man, a mere lad called Lorenzo Centi. Some one made a joke about her and this boy before me and aroused my suspicions concerning them. I found Leonora on more than one occasion sitting apart on a couch with young Centi--once, with their hands clasped together--and I forbad him the house in consequence. But a rumour reached my ears that, when I was away from home, my wife’s woman was used to fetch Centi to her, and they spent the time of my absence together. I determined to watch. I professed to be going for a night into the country to see after my farm, but I returned at midnight, and found them supping together in Leonora’s boudoir. I rushed in upon them furiously, and my wife turned and laughed in my face--knowing all my deep love for her, she laughed at my disappointment and she drove me mad. Before God, Steinberg, if she had only cried, or seemed frightened, or sorry, I should have spared her--I loved her so intensely--but her laugh raised all the Devil in me and before the smile had left her lips, she lay dead at my feet.” The stoical German sprang away from Ricardo’s side. He had been prepared for much, but not for murder. “No! no! you must be mistaken,” he exclaimed; “you do not mean that you killed her!” “_Killed her!_ Of course I did, and would have killed her lover into the bargain, but that he escaped before I could lay hands on him. She laughed at my distress, and I stabbed her to the heart with my dagger. Better dead, a thousand times, I thought, than live a lie! But now--now----” “You are sorry--you repent----” said Steinberg, sympathetically, “Yes! I can understand it perfectly! But it was done in a moment of anger--you were not master of yourself--you would act very differently were the time to come over again.” “Not if she were false,” cried the Professor, “I would kill her over again this moment, if she deceived me! But did she--did she? That is the question that harasses me now.” “What! have you any doubts upon the subject?” “I have every doubt--they torture me day and night. What proofs had I of her guilt? She was young and careless and very, very beautiful! Might she not have played with fire without considering the consequences--without being burnt? She laughed at me, it is true--but she did not know the depth of a man’s love--the strength of a man’s jealousy. “She did not think, my poor Leonora, that my hand was on the fatal weapon I carried in my breast. Ah, Steinberg, it is better like you never to have known the rapture of possessing a woman, than to feel you have sent her out of the world, when perhaps she was innocent.” “It is terrible,” said the Doctor, “but was it never cleared up?”