And now the door opened, and a cry of amazement and rage broke from
the lips of the countess.
"Retaux de Vilette," cried she madly, doubling up her little hands
into fists and extending them toward the man who now entered the
hall. "Shameful, shameful! He has turned against me!"
And losing for a moment her composure, she sank back upon the seat
from which she had risen in her fright. A deathly paleness covered
her cheeks, and, almost swooning, she rested her head on the back of
the chair.
"You now see that God is just," said the president, after a brief
pause. "Your own conscience testifies against you and compels you to
confess yourself guilty."
She sprang up and compelled herself to resume her self-possessed
manner, and to appear cool and defiant as before.
"No!" she said, "I do not confess myself guilty, and I have no
reason to! My heart only shuddered when I saw this man enter, whom I
have saved from hunger, overwhelmed with kindness, and whom my
enemies have now brought up to make him testify against me! But it
is over--I am now ready to see new lies, new infamies heaped upon
me: M. Retaux de Vilette may now speak on, his calumnies will only
drop from the undented mail of my conscience!"
And with possessed bearing and an air of proud scorn, Countess
Lamotte looked at the man who, bowing and trembling, advanced by the
side of the officer to the green table, and sedulously shunned
meeting the eyes of Lamotte, which rested on him like two fiery
daggers.
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