"She's right, Bienville," Derek muttered, nodding toward Marion. "Better do just as she says."
"I'm a Frenchman. I'm a Bienville. I can't accept mercy."
"But you can bestow it," the girl cried, passionately. "Any one would tell you that, after all that has happened—after this—I should be happier in sharing your life than in being shut out of it. I appeal to you, Miss Lucilla! I appeal to you, Diane!—wouldn't any woman be proud to be the wife of Raoul de Bienville after what he has done this afternoon, no matter how the world turned against him?"
"These ladies, in the goodness of their hearts, might say anything they chose; but nothing would alter their conviction that for you to be my wife would be only to add misery to mistake."
"That's so," the old banker corroborated, smacking his lips, "but you wouldn't be much worse when you'd done that than you are now; so why not just let her have her way?"
Bienville tried to speak again, but his dry lips refused to frame the words.
"Noble ... impossible ... drag you down," came incoherently from him, when by a quick backward movement he stepped over the threshold into the semi-obscurity of the hail.
The act was so sudden that seconds had already elapsed before Marion Grimston uttered the cry that rent her like the wail of some strong, primordial creature without the power of tears.
"Raoul, come back!"
With rapid motion she glided across the room and was in the hail.