"
"Not till after it had been recounted to me by strangers, with
all its horrible details."
"And you believed them then and there," she said with great
vehemence, "without a proof or question--you believed that I, whom you
vowed you loved more than life, whom you professed you worshipped,
that _I_ could do a thing so base as these STRANGERS chose to
recount. You thought I meant to deceive you about it all--that I
ought to have spoken before I married you: yet, had you listened, I
would have told you that up to the very morning on which St. Cyr went
to the guillotine, I was straining every nerve, using every influence
I possessed, to save him and his family. But my pride sealed my lips,
when your love seemed to perish, as if under the knife of that same
guillotine. Yet I would have told you how I was duped! Aye! I, whom
that same popular rumour had endowed with the sharpest wits in France!
I was tricked into doing this thing, by men who knew how to play upon
my love for an only brother, and my desire for revenge. Was it
unnatural?"
Her voice became choked with tears. She paused for a moment
or two, trying to regain some sort of composure.
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