told him. "You have named your
price and you have heard my refusal. Now go."

"Not yet awhile," said he, in a voice so odiously sweet that Garnache
caught his breath.

He drew her towards him. Despite her wild struggles he held her fast
against his breast. Do what she would, he rained his hot kisses on her
face and hair, till at last, freeing a hand, she smote him with all her
might across the face.

He let her go then. He fell back with an oath, a patch of fingermarks
showing red on his white countenance.

"That blow has killed Florimond de Condillac," he told her viciously.
"He dies at noon to-morrow. Ponder it, my pretty."

"I care not what you do so that you leave me," she answered defiantly,
restraining by a brave effort the tears of angry distress that welled
up from her stricken heart. And no less stricken, no less angry was
Garnache where he listened. It was by an effort that he had restrained
himself from bursting in upon them when Marius had seized her. The
reflection that were he to do so all would irretrievably be ruined alone
had stayed him.

Marius eyed the girl a moment, his face distorted by the rage that was
in him.

"By God!" he swore, "if I cannot have your love, I'll give you cause
enough to hate me."

"Already have you done that most thoroughly," said she. And Garnache
cursed this pertness of hers which was serving to dare him on.

The next moment there broke from her a startled cry. Marius had seized
her again and was crushing her frail body in his arms.

"I shall kiss your lips before I go, ma mie," said he, his voice thick
now with a passion that was not all of anger. And then, while he still
struggled to have his way with her, a pair of arms took him about the
waist like hoops of steel.

In his surprise he let her free, and in that moment he was swung back
and round and cast a good six paces down the room.

He came to a standstill by the table, at which he clutched to save
himself from falling, and turned bewildered, furious eyes upon
"Battista," by whom he now dimly realized that he had been assailed.

Garnache's senses had all left him in that moment when Valerie had cried
out. He cast discretion to the winds; reason went out of him, and only
blind anger remained to drive him into immediate action. And as suddenly
as that flood of rage had leaped, as suddenly did it ebb now that he
found himself face to face with the outraged Condillac and began to
understand the magnitude of