"What!" she said, "my husband! What do you mean?"

"That he left this woman's house only a little while ago, that for a
month they have been meeting secretly. You are betrayed: I have seen
them and she does not dare to deny it."

"Have mercy!" cried Rose, still kneeling.

The cry was a confession. Bertrande became pate as death. "O God!" she
murmured, "deceived, betrayed--and by him!"

"For a month past," repeated the old man.

"Oh! the wretch," she continued, with increasing passion; "then his whole
life is a lie! He has abused my credulity, he now abuses my love! He
does not know me! He thinks he can trample on me--me, in whose power are
his fortune, his honour, his very life itself!"

Then, turning to Rose--

"And you, miserable woman! by what unworthy artifice did you gain his
love? Was it by witchcraft? or some poisonous philtre learned from your
worthy father?"

"Alas! no, madame; my weakness is my only crime, and also my only excuse.
I loved him, long ago, when I was only a young girl, and these memories
have been my ruin."

"Memories? What! did you also think you were loving the same man? Are
you also his dupe? Or are you only pretending, in order to find a rag of