"You are mine, you know," he said, his fingers closing round my wrist with a grasp as weak as a very young child's.—"She is my wife, Monsieur le Curé."
"Yes," I sobbed, "I am your wife, Richard."
"Do they hear it?" he asked, in a whisper.
"We hear it," answered Tardif.
A strange, spasmodic smile flitted across his ghastly face, a look of triumph and success. His fingers tightened over my hand, and I left it passively in their clasp.
"Mine!" he murmured.
"Olivia," he said, after a long pause, and in a stronger voice, "you always spoke the truth to me. This priest and his follower have been trying to frighten me into repentance, as if I were an old woman. They say I am near dying. Tell me, is it true?"
The last words he had spoken painfully, dragging them one after another, as if the very utterance of them was hateful to him. He looked at me with his cold, glittering eyes, which seemed almost mocking at me, even then.
"Richard," I said, "it is true."
"Good God!" he cried.