She told her falsehood fearlessly. This man’s trouble, this man’s peace, if she might but win it, was the purpose of her life.
“Tardif said that—he said that you—that you and Fournel—”
She read his meaning in his tone, and shrank back in terror, then with a flush, straightened herself, and took a step towards him.
“It was natural that you should not care for a hunchback like me,” he continued, “but—”
“Louis!” she cried, in a voice of anguish and reproach.
“But I did not doubt you. I believed in you when he said it, as I believe in you now when you stand there like that. I know what you have done for me—”
“I pleaded with Monsieur Fournel, knowing how you loved the Seigneury—pleaded and offered to pay three times the price—”
“Yourself would have been a hundred million times the price. Ah, I know you, Madelinette—I know you now! I have been selfish, but I see all now. Now when all is over—” he seemed listening to noises with out—“I see what you have done for me. I know how you have sacrificed all for me—all but honour—all but honour,” he added, a wild fire in his eyes, a trembling seizing him. “Your honour is yours forever. I say so. I say so, and I have proved it. Kiss me, Madelinette—kiss me once,” he added, in a quick whisper.
“My poor, poor Louis!” she said, laid a soothing hand upon his arm, and leaned towards him. He snatched her to his breast, and kissed her twice in a very agony of joy, then let her go. He listened for an instant to the growing noise without, then said in a hoarse voice:
“Now, I will tell you, Madelinette. They are coming for me—don’t you hear them? They are coming to take me; but they shall not have me. They shall not have me—” he glanced to a little door that led into a bath-room at his right.