One side of him glowed in illumination; the other was black as Winter night; but light subdues darkness; and in a situation like Beauchamp’s, the blood is livelier than the prophetic mind.
“Why did you tell me to marry? What did that mean?” said he. “Did you wish me to be the one in chains? And you have come quite alone!—you will give me an account of everything presently:—You are here! in England! and what a welcome for you! You are cold.”
“I am warmly clad,” said Renée, suffering her hand to be drawn to his breast at her arm’s-length, not bending with it.
Alive to his own indirectness, he was conscious at once of the slight sign of reservation, and said: “Tell me...” and swerved sheer away from his question: “how is Madame d’Auffray?”
“Agnès? I left her at Tourdestelle,” said Renée.
“And Roland? He never writes to me.”
“Neither he nor I write much. He is at the military camp of instruction in the North.”
“He will run over to us.”
“Do not expect it.”
“Why not?”