Within an Inch of His Life by Emile Gaboriau (good summer reads .TXT) 📖

are perfectly aware, that, as society is with us, the same thing which disgraces a woman rather raises a man in the estimate of the world. And as to my being afraid of Count Claudieuse, it is well known that I am afraid of nobody. At the time when we were concealing our love in the house in Vine Street, yes, at that time, I might have been afraid of your husband; for he might have surprised us there, the code in one hand, a revolver in the other, and have availed himself of that stupid and savage law which makes the husband the judge of his own case, and the executor of the sentence which he himself pronounces. But setting aside such a case, the case of being taken in the act, which allows a man to kill like a dog another man, who can not or will not defend himself, what did I care for Count Claudieuse? What did I care for your threats or for his hatred?” He said these words with perfect calmness, but with that cold, cutting tone which is as sharp as a sword, and with that positiveness which enters irresistibly into the mind. The countess was tottering, and stammered almost inaudibly,—

“Who would imagine such a thing? Is it possible?”

Then, suddenly raising her head, she said,—

“But I am losing my senses. If you are innocent, who, then, could be the guilty man?”

Jacques seized her hands almost madly, and pressing them painfully, and bending over her so closely that she felt his hot breath like a flame touching her face, he hissed into her ear,—

“You, wretched creature, you!”

And then pushing her from him with such violence that she fell into a chair, he continued,—

“You, who wanted to be a widow in order to prevent me from breaking the chains in which you held me. At our last meeting, when I thought you were crushed by grief, and felt overcome by your hypocritical tears, I was weak enough, I was stupid enough, to say that I married Dionysia only because you were not free. Then you cried, ‘O God, how happy I am that that idea did not occur to me before!’ What idea was that, Genevieve? Come, answer me and confess, that it occurred to you too soon after all, since you have carried it out?”

And repeating with crushing irony the words just uttered by the countess, he said,—

“If you are innocent, who, then, would be the guilty man?”

Quite beside herself, she sprang up from her chair, and casting at Jacques one of those glances which seem to enter through our eyes into the very heart of our hearts, she asked,—

“Is it really possible that you have not committed this abominable crime?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“But then,” she repeated, almost panting, “is it true, can it really be true, that you think I have committed it?”

“Perhaps you have only ordered it to be committed.”

With a wild gesture she raised her arms to heaven, and cried in a heart-rending voice,—

“O God, O God! He believes it! he really believes it!”

There followed great silence, dismal, formidable silence, such as in nature follows the crash of the thunderbolt.

Standing face to face, Jacques and the Countess Claudieuse looked at each other madly, feeling that the fatal hour in their lives had come at last.

Each felt a growing, a sure conviction of the other. There was no need of explanations. They had been misled by appearances: they acknowledged it; they were sure of it.

And this discovery was so fearful, so overwhelming, that neither thought of who the real guilty one might be.

“What is to be done?” asked the countess.

“The truth must be told,” replied Jacques.

“Which?”

“That I have been your lover; that I went to Valpinson by appointment with you; that the cartridge-case which was found there was used by me to get fire; that my blackened hands were soiled by the half-burnt fragment of our letters, which I had tried to scatter.”

“Never!” cried the countess.

Jacques’s face turned crimson, as he said with an accent of merciless severity,—

“It shall be told! I will have it so, and it must be done!”

The countess seemed to be furious.

“Never!” she cried again, “never!”

And with convulsive haste she added,—

“Do you not see that the truth cannot possibly be told. They would never believe in our innocence. They would only look upon us as accomplices.”

“Never mind. I am not willing to die.”

“Say that you will not die alone.”

“Be it so.”

“To confess every thing would never save you, but would most assuredly ruin me. Is that what you want? Would your fate appear less cruel to you, if there were two victims instead of one?”

He stopped her by a threatening gesture, and cried,—

“Are you always the same? I am sinking, I am drowning; and she calculates, she bargains! And she said she loved me!”

“Jacques!” broke in the countess.

And drawing close up to him, she said,—

“Ah! I calculate, I bargain? Well, listen. Yes, it is true. I did value my reputation as an honest woman more highly, a thousand times more, than my life; but, above my life and my reputation, I valued you. You are drowning, you say. Well, then, let us flee. One word from you, and I leave all,—honor, country, family, husband, children. Say one word, and I follow you without turning my head, without a regret, without a remorse.”

Her whole body was shivering from head to foot; her bosom rose and fell; her eyes shone with unbearable brilliancy.

Thanks to the violence of her action, her dress, put on in great haste, had opened, and her dishevelled hair flowed in golden masses over her bosom and her shoulders, which matched the purest marble in their dazzling whiteness.

And in a voice trembling with pent-up passion, now sweet and soft like a tender caress, and now deep and sonorous like a bell, she went on,—

“What keeps us? Since you have escaped from prison, the greatest difficulty is overcome. I thought at first of taking our girl, your girl, Jacques; but she is very ill; and besides a child might betray us. If we go alone, they will never overtake us. We will have money enough, I am sure, Jacques. We will flee to those distant countries which appear in books of travels in such fairy-like beauty. There, unknown, forgotten, unnoticed, our life will be one unbroken enjoyment. You will never again