de Vilmorin
as a matter of duty to my order. And the truth - which though it
may offend you should also convince you - is that to-night I can
look back on the deed with equanimity, without a single regret,
apart from what lies between you and me.
"When, kneeling beside the body of your friend that day at
Gavrillac, you insulted and provoked me, had I been the tiger you
conceived me I must have killed you too. I am, as you may know, a
man of quick passions. Yet I curbed the natural anger you aroused
in me, because I could forgive an affront to myself where I could
not overlook a calculated attack upon my order."
He paused a moment. Andre-Louis stood rigid listening and wondering.
So, too, the others. Then M. le Marquis resumed, on a note of less
assurance. "In the matter of Mlle. Binet I was unfortunate. I
wronged you through inadvertence. I had no knowledge of the
relations between you."
Andre-Louis interrupted him sharply at last with a question: "Would
it have made a difference if you had?"
"No," he was answered frankly.
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