. Then bringing the Spaniard's rushlight from the three
or four that stood on the dresser, she lighted it and held it out to
him.

"Set it down!" he said, with tipsy insolence. He was not quite sober.
"Set it down! I am not going to--hic!--risk my salvation! Avaunt, Satan!
It is possible to palm the evil one, like a card I am told,
and--hic!--soul out, devil in, all lost as easy as candle goes out!"

He had taken his candle with an unsteady hand, and unconsciously had
blown it out himself. She restrained Claude by a look, and patiently
taking the rushlight from Grio, she re-lit it and set it on the table
for him to take.

"As a candle goes out!" he repeated, eyeing it with drunken wisdom.
"Candle out, devil in, soul lost, there you have it in three
words--clever as any of your long-winded preachers! But I want my
things. I am going before it is too late. Advise you to go too, young
man," he hiccoughed, "before you are overlooked. She is a witch! She's
the devil's mark on her, I tell you! I'd like to have the finding it!"
And with an ugly leer he advanced a step as if he would lay hands on
her.

She shrank back, and Claude's eyes blazed. Fortunately, the bully's mind
passed to the first object of his coming; or it may be that he was sober
enough to read a warning in the younger man's face.

"Oh! time enough," he said. "You are not so nice always, I'll be bound.
And things come--hic!--to those who wait! I don't belong to your
Sabbaths, I suppose, or you'd be freer! But I want my things, and I am
going to have them! I defy thee, Satan! And all thy works!"

Still growling under his breath he burst open the staircase door, and
stumbled noisily upwards, the light wavering in his hand. Anne's eyes
followed him; she had advanced to the foot of the stairs, and Claude
understood the apprehension that held her. But the sounds did not
penetrate to the room on the upper floor, or Madame Royaume did not take
the alarm; perhaps she slept. And after assuring herself that Grio had
entered his room the girl returned to the table.

The Spaniard had spoken with brutal plainness; it was no longer possible
to ignore what he had said, or to lie under any illusion as to the
girl's knowledge of her peril. Claude's eyes met hers: and for a moment
the anguished human soul peered through the mask of constancy, for a
moment the woman in her, shrinking from the ordeal and the fire, from
shame and death, thrust aside the veil, and held out qu