A look of reproach nearly found expression in hasty words, but remembering herself she said hastily, acting the part to the life:—
"Oh, you're always so mysterious, Alexis. I've no patience with you."
Then I led the other into my second sitting-room and told her much of what had passed: and when I came to that part of the interview that immediately concerned herself, she was very bitter and angry.
"You think I am a pawn to be moved where you like in your game; of no account, and the meanest thing on the board. You and he are both alike in that—but wait. Your life is mine, Alexis. I have told you."
"But you must surely see that the first consideration must be all our lives—to say nothing of our safety," I answered, rather roughly, I fear, and very unsympathetically. Her heroics rasped me. "What the deuce is the good of your loving me if your husband shuts me up in a dungeon, or sends me dancing to Siberia, or causes a dagger to let out my life blood?"
"You mean to keep the word you gave him?"
"Certainly, so long as he keeps his."
She fixed her large lustrous eyes on me and let them rest on me during a long pause of silence.
"You and he together will drive me to some desperate deed," she said, at length, very slowly. "Then perhaps you will learn what a love like mine will dare for your sake. I cannot and will not bear this separation."
She wearied me with these protests, but I said nothing and went on to question her as to whether there was any power behind her husband influencing him in regard to me. She knew nothing, but admitted that she had her suspicions.