"But if I do, I declare to you on my honour that the instant I have told you, I will leave the room and the house, and never see you again."
The look of triumph melted away slowly. "I don't want victory on those terms. You've beaten me. Look here." He opened the long French window, flung the pill out into the night, and then emptied the phial. "Rather than—than what you said;" and he looked round and sighed.
"Thank you," I said.
In the pause the sound of horses' hoofs on the hard road, reached us through the open window.
"Here come Gustav and the priest, I expect."
I bit my lip. "I don't want him to see me," I said, hurriedly.
"What does it matter?"
"Everything."
He closed the window. "What will you do?"
"I will lock myself in one of the rooms upstairs and tell my servants to say Madame d'Artelle is too ill to see him."