The Steel Hammer

An excerpt from the book:

She looked straight before her, as if, in the distance, she could see that other corpse of a man slain by her own husband, and was comparing it with that of the body she had seen at the morgue. She saw them side by side, as it were, stretched out on the same table. Jean Mortier was more dreadful to look at than even Pierre.

He had no fracture in his head—no steel hammer and no cane had killed him—but Gabrielle fancied she could see the white hands of her husband clasping themselves around Jean Mortier "s throat ever tighter and tighter, until the mild, intelligent face of that unhappy man swelled out of shape. It was too horrible.

She caught her breath. She seemed to be strangling, too. Her sigh awoke an old gentleman sitting opposite to her, who was dozing over a number of the "Revue des Deux Mondes."

Thinking himself the cause of this sigh of astonishment, and that the lady was scandalized by his nap, the devotee of the " Revue " stammered an excuse, and said, politely:

" Permit me, madame, to ask you for that paper when you have done with it."

Gabrielle's first impulse was to draw it out of his reach. This stranger might chance upon the very paragraph she had been reading; he might understand it, he might guess her secret. Then, suddenly, she pushed the paper from her. The old gentleman spread it over his breast, just as the foreman of the jury had held his paper.

Madame de Monterey rose, stiffly but firmly. She was resolved that she would not faint, and walked slowly out of the reading-room. She walked up the stairs with her hand on the baluster, not to steady herself so that she might not fall, but to strike it, as she mounted every stair, as a protest to herself that she had, and that she would have, all necessary energy.

When in her own room, she went and stood before the glass, and looked at herself earnestly.

" Henceforward, I must learn to deceive. Henceforward, no one must guess my thoughts. Could anybody suspect, from my looks, that I am the wife of a murderer? "

During the morning she had exhausted all tender emotions. Now their source was dry.

" I must enter on my work," she said, half aloud. " The paper makes a mistake. There has been as yet no epilogue to the drama. I shall furnish one."

The idea of a double suicide came into her mind, as she thought of Jean Mortier's.

For one moment it presented itself like a sudden temptation, but it found no resting-place in her mind.

It seemed an attractive thought to die, and to take Gaston with her before the judgment seat of Him whose judgment is final; to offer in expiation two deaths more.

But self-murder can cure no ills—she and Gaston were not even innocent: the guilty must live and expiate their crimes. Besides, there was Roger, who had claims upon his parents' life and honor.

" Yes, I will live, and he must live! " said Gabrielle to herself, firmly.

When she thought of forcing Gaston to make expiation, she would not allow her mind to dwell upon his crime; she dreaded to be hindered in her plans by her own sorrow.

Those whom she tried to think about were Roger, Jean Mortier's widow, and his little girl.

Gabrielle had made up her mind to place the decision of her fate in Emilienne's hands; to do exactly as the upholsterer's wife had done to her—to go and see her, and to say to her:

" You can kill us, disgrace us, and avenge yourselves. What price can I pay you, that will ransom our honor? All I ask of you is to spare my son."

Truly heroic natures grow calm on the verge of a precipice.

There came into Gabrielle's heart a strange feeling of rest; of peace that was indestructible....