And in a voice trembling with pent-up passion, now sweet and soft like a tender caress, and now deep and sonorous like a bell, she went on,—
“What keeps us? Since you have escaped from prison, the greatest difficulty is overcome. I thought at first of taking our girl, your girl, Jacques; but she is very ill; and besides a child might betray us. If we go alone, they will never overtake us. We will have money enough, I am sure, Jacques. We will flee to those distant countries which appear in books of travels in such fairy-like beauty. There, unknown, forgotten, unnoticed, our life will be one unbroken enjoyment. You will never again say that I bargain. I will be yours, entirely, and solely yours, body and soul, your wife, your slave.”
She threw her head back, and with half-closed eyes, bending with her whole person toward him, she said in melting tones,—
“Say, Jacques, will you? Jacques!”
He pushed her aside with a fierce gesture. It seemed to him almost a sacrilege that she also, like Dionysia, should propose to him to flee.
“Rather the galleys!” he cried.
She turned deadly pale; a spasm of rage convulsed her features; and drawing back, stiff and stern, she said,—
“What else do you want?”
“Your help to save me,” he replied.
“At the risk of ruining myself?”