"Do you mean that it was Mademoiselle de Lavedan ?" He bowed his head in silence.

Did she hate me, then, so much as that?
Would nothing less than my death appease her, and had I utterly crushed the love that for a little while she had borne me, that she could bring herself to hand me over to the headsman?
God! What a stab was that! It turned me sick with grief--aye, and with some rage not against her, oh, not against her; against the fates that had brought such things to pass.
I controlled myself while their eyes were yet upon me.

I went to the door and held it open for them, and they, perceiving something of my disorder, were courteous enough to omit the protracted leave-takings that under other auspices there might have been.

Marsac paused a moment on the threshold as if he would have offered me some word of comfort.
Then, perceiving, perhaps, how banal must be all comfort that was of words alone, and how it might but increase the anger of the wound it was meant to balm, he sighed a simple "Adieu, monsieur!" and went his way.
When they were gone, I returned to the table, and, sitting down, I buried my head in my arms, and there I lay, a prey to the most poignant grief that in all my easy, fortunate life I had ever known.

That she should have done this thing! That the woman I loved, the pure, sweet, innocent girl that I had wooed so ardently in my unworthiness at Lavedan, should have stooped to such an act of betrayal! To what had I not reduced her, since such things could be! Then, out of my despair grew comfort, slowly at first, and more vigorously anon.