I bit my lips. "If she wants to
deceive me," I thought, "I was foolish to question her."
Brigitte arose with difficulty; she took her fan and began to walk up and
down the room.
She was breathing hard; I had wounded her. She was absorbed in thought
and we exchanged two or three glances that were almost cold. She stepped
to her desk, opened it, drew out a package of letters tied together with
a ribbon, and threw it at my feet without a word.
But I was looking neither at her nor her letters; I had just thrown a
stone into the abyss and was listening for the echoes. For the first
time, offended pride was depicted on Brigitte's face. There was no longer
either anxiety or pity in her eyes and, just as I had come to feel myself
other than I had ever been, so I saw in her a woman I did not know.
"Read that," she said finally. I stepped up to her and took her hand.
"Read that, read that!" she repeated in freezing tones.
I took the letters. At that moment I felt so persuaded of her innocence
that I was seized with remorse.
"You remind me," she said, "that I owe you the story of my life; sit down
and you shall learn it. You will open these drawers and you will read all
that I have written and all that has been written to me."
She sat down and motioned me to a chair. I saw that she found it
difficult to speak. She was pale as death, her voice constrained, her
throat swollen.
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