teps behind them. "Rid me of
that ruffian's company," said she.

Marius looked back at "Battista," and from him to Valerie. Then he
smiled and made a slight movement with his shoulders.

"But to what end?" he asked, as one who pleadingly opposes an argument
that is unreasonable. "Another would replace him, and there is little to
choose among the men that garrison Condillac."

"Little, perhaps; but that little matters." Sure of her ground, and
gathering from his tone and manner that the more ardently she begged
this thing the less likely would it be that she should prevail, she
pursued her intercessions with a greater heat. "Oh," she cried, in a
pretended rage, "it is to insult me to give me that unclean knave for
perpetual company. I loathe and detest him. The very sight of him is too
much to endure."

"You exaggerate," said he coldly.

"I do not; indeed I do not," she rejoined, looking frankly, pleadingly
into his face. "You do not realize what it is to suffer the insolent
vigilance of such as he; to feel that your every step is under
surveillance; to feel his eyes ever upon you when you are within his
sight. Oh, it is insufferable!"

Suddenly he gripped her arm, his face within a hand's breadth of her
own, his words falling hot and quickly on her ear.

"It is yours to end it when you will, Valerie," he passionately reminded
her. "Give yourself into my keeping. Let it be mine to watch over you
henceforth. Let me--"

Abruptly he ceased. She had drawn back her head, her face was white to
the lips, and in her eyes, as they dwelt on his at such close quarters,
there appeared a look of terror, of loathing unutterable. He saw it, and
releasing her arm he fell back as if she had struck him. The colour left
his face too.

"Or is it," he muttered thickly, "that I inspire you, with much the same
feeling as does he?"

She stood before him with lowered eyelids, her bosom heaving still from
the agitation of fear his closeness had aroused in her. He studied her
in silence a moment, with narrowing eyes and tightening lips. Then
anger stirred in him, and quenched the sorrow with which at first he had
marked the signs of her repulsion. But anger in Marius de Condillac was
a cold and deadly emotion that vented itself in no rantings, uttered
no loud-voiced threats or denunciations, prompted no waving of arms or
plucking forth of weapons.

He stooped towards her again from his stately, graceful height.
The cruelty hidden in