So firm had been her faith in him that her visions of him on the passage to England had resolved all to one flash of blood-warm welcome awaiting her: and it says much for her natural generosity that the savage delicacy of a woman placed as she now was, did not take a mortal hurt from the apparent voidness of this home of his bosom. The passionate gladness of the lover was wanting: the chivalrous valiancy of manful joy.
Renée shivered at the cloud thickening over her new light of intrepid defiant life.
“Think it not improbable that I have weighed everything I surrender in quitting France,” she said.
Remorse wrestled with Beauchamp and flung him at her feet.
Renée remarked on the lateness of the hour.
He promised to conduct her to her hotel immediately.
“And to-morrow?” said Renée, simply, but breathlessly.
“To-morrow, let it be Italy! But first I telegraph to Roland and Tourdestelle. I can’t run and hide. The step may be retrieved: or no, you are right; the step cannot, but the next to it may be stopped—that was the meaning I had! I’ll try. It’s cutting my hand off, tearing my heart out; but I will. O that you were free! You left your husband at Tourdestelle?”
“I presume he is there at present: he was in Paris when I left.”
Beauchamp spoke hoarsely and incoherently in contrast with her composure: “You will misunderstand me for a day or two, Renée. I say if you were free I should have my first love mine for ever. Don’t fear me: I have no right even to press your fingers. He may throw you into my arms. Now you are the same as if you were in your own home: and you must accept me for your guide. By all I hope for in life, I’ll see you through it, and keep the dogs from barking, if I can. Thousands are ready to give tongue. And if they can get me in the character of a law-breaker!—I hear them.”