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.