“Strike!” she cried again; then suddenly her hands dropped limp, and she moaned to herself.
“I dare not think. I cannot sleep. He is always there, weeping and imploring. But there is something between—a deep red pool, with an under-motion. If I were to wade in—my God!” she cried—“I am afraid even to die!”
She held up her hands to the man before her, as if in prayer.
“Take me with thee—there, into the water. I will not struggle, if thou hold’st me tight. Thou wert his friend for a little while, and thou also hast suffered. Thou wilt plead for me, monsieur, wilt thou not?—thou wilt plead?”
Her voice broke in a shiver. For all its wretchedness, the heart of her hearer was stricken anew.
“Thou Théroigne,” he said; “thou poor twice-abandoned fool. Wouldst thou urge upon me that a first error is to be atoned by a second! Oh, thou woman—not to understand how cheap that love must be held that would disprove itself to spite its object!”
God knows what angel of light or darkness had been at his elbow a moment earlier. Now, he put his hand into his breast as he spoke.
She looked at him, lost and wild.
“Thou didst not come to throw thyself into the river?” she muttered.
“No,” he said—“but only this.”