And I believed that mask of yours to hide the face of St.
Auban!" Her words froze me into a stony mass of insensibility.

There was no logic in my attitude; I see it now.

Appearances were all against me, and her belief no more than justified.

I overlooked all this, and instead of saving time by recounting how I came to be there and thus delivering her from the anguish that was torturing her, I stood, dumb and cruel, cut to the quick by her scorn and her suspicions that I was capable of such a thing as she imputed, and listening to the dictates of an empty pride that prompted me to make her pay full penalty.
"Oh, God pity me!" she wailed.

"Have you naught to say ?" Still I maintained my mad, resentful silence.