He knew
her ambition and recklessness, but still, versed as he was in all
the ways of wickedness, and knowing the inexorable bitterness of
envy, and the cruelty of jealousy in the female breast,--at least in
such women as he had for the most part had experience of,--Bigot
could hardly admit the thought that one so fair as Angelique, one
who held him in a golden net of fascination, and to whom he had been
more than once on the point of yielding, could have committed so
great a crime.
He struggled with his thoughts like a man amid tossing waves,
groping about in the dark for a plank to float upon, but could find
none. Still, in spite of himself, in spite of his violent
asseverations that "it was IMPOSSIBLE;" in spite of Cadet's
plausible theory of robbers,--which Bigot at first seized upon as
the likeliest explanation of the mystery,--the thought of Angelique
ever returned back upon him like a fresh accusation.
He could not accuse her yet, though something told him he might have
to do so at last. He grew angry at the ever-recurring thought of
her, and turning his face to the wall, like a man trying to shut out
the light, resolved to force disbelief in her guilt until clearer
testimony than his own suspicions should convict her of the death of
Caroline.
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