"Ah! how you love her!" she cried. "Yes, you love her, it is she you
love-I know it, I feel it, and I-I am only the wretched object of your
pity, or of your caprice. Very well, go back to her--go and protect her,
for I swear to you she is in peril!"

He smiled with his haughty irony.

"Let us see your plot," he said. "So you intend to kill her?"

"If I can!" she said; and her superb arm was stretched out as if to
seize a weapon.

"What! with your own hand?"

"The hand shall be found."

"You are so beautiful at this moment!" said Camors; "I am dying with the
desire to fall at your feet. Acknowledge only that you wished to try me,
or that you were mad for a moment."

She gave a savage smile.

"Oh! you fear, my friend," she said, coldly; then raising again her
voice, which assumed a malignant tone, "You are right, I am not mad, I
did not wish to try you; I am jealous, I am betrayed, and I shall revenge
myself--no matter what it costs me--for I care for nothing more in this
world!--Go, and guard her!"

"Be it so; I go," said Camors. He immediately left the salon and the
chateau; he reached the railway station on foot, and that evening arrived