Don't you want her to see it? What do you gain by
killing Colonel Grand? He has wronged you, but do you help yourself by
making matters infinitely worse now, so many years afterward? Do--"
"He told me, over there in the police station, three years ago, that
he had won your love, that you lived for him alone. He lied. I could
kill him once for that lie. He told me, in the next breath, that you
and he were going to sell Christine to a certain French nobleman, who
already had a wife and family. He lied again. I could kill him once
more for that lie. He told me--"
"Don't! Don't! For God's sake, don't tell me any more," she groaned,
horror-stricken.
He went on. "He taunted me, he laughed at me. I was up there for three
years. In all that time his damned sneers and laughter were never out
of my mind. He laughed at me because the drunken bargain I had made
with him had turned out to his credit, after all."
"The sale?"
"Yes."
He looked away. The expression in her eyes cut him like a knife.
"I ought to have been shot for that, Mary," he said.
"Yes," she agreed mechanically.
His hand went to his mouth suddenly, as if to steady the lips.
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