He turned in surprise and looked at the weeping woman. 

He was not mistaken: this neatly dressed waiting-maid was Nina Gypsy. 

Prosper was so startled that he became perfectly dumb. He stood there with ashy lips, and a chilly sensation creeping through his veins. 

The horror of the situation terrified him. He was there, between the two women who had ruled his fate; between Madeleine, the proud heiress who spurned his love, and Nina Gypsy, the poor girl whose devotion to himself he had so disdainfully rejected. 

And she had heard all; poor Gypsy had witnessed the passionate avowal of her lover, had heard him swear that he could never love any woman but Madeleine, that if his love were not reciprocated he would kill himself, as he had nothing else to live for. 

Prosper could judge of her sufferings by his own. For she was wounded not only in the present, but in the past. What must be her humiliation and danger on hearing the miserable part which Prosper, in his disappointed love, had imposed upon her? 

He was astonished that Gypsy--violence itself--remained silently weeping, instead of rising and bitterly denouncing him. 

Meanwhile Madeleine had succeeded in recovering her usual calmness. 

Slowly and almost unconsciously she had put on her bonnet and shawl, which were lying on the sofa. 

Then she approached Prosper, and said: 

"Why did you come here? We both have need of all the courage we can command. You are unhappy, Prosper; I am more than unhappy, I am most wretched. You have a right to complain: I have not the right to shed a tear. While my heart is slowly breaking, I must wear a smiling face. You can seek consolation in the bosom of a friend: I can have no confidant but God." 

Prosper tried to murmur a reply, but his pale lips refused to articulate; he was stifling. 

"I wish to tell you," continued Madeleine, "that I have forgotten nothing. But oh! let not this knowledge give you any hope; the future is blank for us, but if you love me you will live. You will not, I know, add to my already heavy burden of sorrow, the agony of mourning your death. For my sake, live; live the life of a good man, and perhaps the day will come when I can justify myself in your eyes. And now, oh, my brother, oh, 

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