“I swear—deny yourself this gratification of a lust so inhuman, and I will think better of you than ever before.”
“That will be compensation for all I have suffered,” she said.
Her voice seemed too toneless, too passionless even for irony. She stood without a movement before him, the marks of his clutch slowly fading from her shoulder.
“Théroigne,” he cried, “you have the chance to a little atone. You will not so clinch your damnation! In the name of God, Théroigne! This man was the father of your child.”
“True,” she said, “of my dead child. I will come, monsieur.”
He gave a gasp of terrible relief.
“Hurry!” he said, “or it will be too late.”
She had already seized a cloak from a recess: in a moment they were speeding on their way together.
He talked to her as they hurried on—half unconsciously, almost hysterically. He told of his chance encounter, of Basile’s degradation, of anything or nothing. It was such emotional gabble as even reserved men vent during the first moments of respite from intolerable anguish. His voice echoed back from the silent houses. He did not even notice that the girl returned him never an answer, so assured was he now of her sympathy.
The streets were curiously still and deserted, the familiar life of them all shrunk and cowering behind a thousand lightless blinds. Now and again phantom cries seemed wafted to them from remote quarters; now and again a glimmer of torches would flash from far perspectives, and travel a moment on the blackness and vanish.