"He doth that quite enough already. And I'll release you of that wager, Fernande."
Flushed with wrath, wretched with maddening jealousy, he drew nearer to the girl, and with a brusque movement seized her in his arms.
"Fernande," he cried, "you torture me...."
She looked up at him—there certainly was a look of acute suffering in his young face. She disengaged herself from his arms and said gently:
"Poor Laurent! If it were not that we have need of the man and that ma tante sets such great store by La Frontenay, I would turn my back on him for ever to-morrow."
But he was not satisfied, even though she had spoken with singular vehemence, and his misery wrung from him a last passionate appeal:
"You do not love him, Fernande?"
For a moment or two she stood quite still, her eyes fixed on the distance, far away where lay the woods of La Frontenay—a dark green patch on the lower slope of the hills; then she turned slowly and looked calmly into Laurent de Mortain's glowering eyes.
"I hate him," she replied.