"We are so weak, we women, we lose our heads more easily than you do. And then, when a woman once falls, she always falls lower and lower. Did I know what I was doing? I understood only that one of you two and I were going to die--and I gave myself to this brute. "You see, father, that I do not seek to excuse myself. "Then, then--then what I should have foreseen happened--he had the better of me again and again, when he wished, by terrifying me. He, too, has been my lover, like the other, every day. Is not this abominable? And what punishment, father? "So then it is all over with me. I must die. While I lived, I could not confess such a crime to you. Dead, I dare everything. I could not do otherwise than die--nothing could have washed me clean--I was too polluted. I could no longer love or be loved. It seemed to me that I stained everyone by merely allowing my hand to be touched. "Presently I am going to take my bath, and I will never come back. "This letter for you will go to my lover. It will reach him when I am dead, and without anyone knowing anything about it, he will forward it to you, accomplishing my last wishes. And you shall read it on your return from the cemetery. "Adieu, father! I have no more to tell you. Do whatever you wish, and forgive me." * * * * * The colonel wiped his forehead, which was covered with perspiration. His coolness; the coolness of days when he had stood on the field of battle, suddenly came back to him. He rang. A man-servant made his appearance. "Send in Philippe to me," said he. Then, he opened the drawer of his table. The man entered almost immediately--a big soldier with red moustache, a malignant look, and a cunning eye. The colonel looked him straight in the face. "You are going to tell me the name of my wife's lover." "But, my colonel--" The officer snatched his revolver out of the half-open drawer. "Come! quick! You know I do not jest!" "Well--my colonel--it is Captain Saint-Albert." Scarcely had he pronounced this name when a flame flashed between his eyes, and he fell on his face, his forehead pierced by a ball. DUCHOUX While descending the wide staircase of the club heated like a conservatory by the stove the Baron de Mordiane had left his fur-coat open; therefore, when the huge street-door closed behind him he felt a shiver of intense cold run through him, one of those sudden and painful shivers which make us feel sad, as if we were stricken with grief. Moreover, he had lost some money, and his stomach for some time past had troubled him, no longer permitting him to eat as he liked.