he almost feared he might strike her.

"I have heard enough," he blazed. "Not another word from any here in
Condillac! I'll take this lady with me now, at once; and if any here
raises a finger to resist me, as Heaven is my witness, it will be the
last resistance he will ever offer any man. Let a hand be laid upon me,
or a sword bared before my eyes, and I swear, madame, that I'll come
back and burn this dunghill of rebellion to the ground."

In the blindness of his passion all his fine keenness was cast to the
wind, his all-observing watchfulness was smothered in the cloud of anger
that oppressed his brain. He never saw the sign that madame made to her
son, never so much as noticed Marius's stealthy progress towards the
door.

"Oh," he continued, a satirical note running now through his tempestuous
voice, "it is a fine thing to cozen each other with honeyed words,
with smirks and with grimaces. But we have done with that, madame." He
towered grimly above her, shaking a threatening finger in her very face.
"We have done with that. We shall resort to deeds, instead."

"Aye, monsieur," she answered very coldly, sneering upon his red-hot
fury, "there shall be deeds enough to satisfy even your outrageous
thirst for them."

That cold, sneering voice, with its note of threat, was like a hand
of ice upon his overheated brain. It cooled him on the instant. He
stiffened, and looked about him. He saw that Marius had disappeared,
and that mademoiselle had risen and was regarding him with singularly
imploring eyes.

He bit his lip in mortified chagrin. He cursed himself inwardly for a
fool and a dolt--the more pitiable because he accounted himself cunning
above others. Had he but kept his temper, had he done no more than
maintain the happy pretence that he was a slave to the orders he
had received--a mere machine--he might have gained his ends by sheer
audacity. At least, his way of retreat would have remained open, and he
might have gone, to return another day with force at his heels.

As it was, that pretty whelp, her son, had been sent, no doubt, for men.
He stepped up to Valerie.

"Are you ready, mademoiselle?" said he; for little hope though he might
still have of winning through, yet he must do the best to repair the
damage that was of his making.

She saw that the storm of passion had passed, and she was infected by
the sudden, desperate daring that prompted that question of his.

"I am ready, monsieur," said she,