Giobbe, Strabane, ten others. Before, during, or after, what difference
does it make? Ah, I was sure on knocking at your door--at this door of
honor--I should hear the truth, that I would touch it as I touch this
object," and he laid his hand upon a marble bust on the table.

"You see I hear it like a man. You can speak to me now. Who knows?
Disgust is a great cure for passion. I will listen to you. Do not spare
me!"

"You are mistaken, Gorka," replied Dorsenne. "What I have to say to you,
I can say very simply. I was, and I am, convinced that in a quarter of
an hour, in an hour, tomorrow, the day after, you will consider me a liar
or an imbecile. But, since you misinterpreted my silence, it is my duty
to speak, and I do so. I give you my word of honor I have never had the
least suspicion of a connection between Madame Steno and Maitland,
nor have their relations seemed changed to me for a second since your
absence. I give you my word of honor that no one, do you hear, no one
has spoken of it to me. And, now, act as you please, think as you
please. I have said all I can say."

The novelist uttered those words with a feverish energy which was caused
by the terrible strain he was making upon his conscience. But Gorka's
laugh had terrified him so much the more as at the same instant the
jealous lover's disengaged hand was voluntarily or involuntarily extended
toward the weapon which gleamed upon the couch. The vision of an
immediate catastrophe, this time inevitable, rose before Julien. His
lips had spoken, as his arm would have been out stretched, by an
irresistible instinct, to save several lives, and he had made the false
statement, the first and no doubt the last in his life, without
reflecting. He had no sooner uttered it than he experienced such an