"Tell me all you know," he said, after awhile.
The woman's heart fluttered; here were her tools. She could keep him, and she would. Kneeling thus beside him, her arms about him, her body close to his, his cheek against her own, he was hers. No woman should take him from her. Rights? Bah! Hers were the rights of conquest, and of the fierce demands which bade her hold what she had gained. There were no other rights.
"She loved him always," she murmured. "It is all told in that." Yet she told much more; of how the Marquise had always suspected, of wanderings in Paris with no other chaperone than herself; on which occasions, knowing what was expected of her, and unwilling to spoil the pretty game she watched, she had discreetly remained as much as possible in the background. "He was generous and gave me presents—but, ciel! Why shouldn't he with a gold mine?" They had especially affected churches, and picture galleries where they could sit in secluded nooks, and where Natalie's attendant could easily lose herself temporarily. "The Marquise raved furiously," added the narrator, "but she would have raved more furiously still had she known all I knew."
"She never loved me," faltered Leonard.
"But I loved you the moment I saw you. It was hard to have you leave me after that kiss. Tell me it was hard for you."
"It was hard; better had I never left you."
"And now you never will. You have made me love you; and I,—I have made you love me; is it not so? Is it wicked? Ah, no; it is good, it is good."
To him who heard the murmured words and was enveloped in the tenderness she shed upon him; who felt her lips upon his own, and who, in the contact, found sweet content—to him, this was a foretaste of the life that might be, if he had the courage to embrace it. He was like some worn and weary pilgrim in arid sands who, visioning an oasis, lies him down by a green brookside, rests in the fresh breezes, listens to the rippling waters, sees their sparkle and inhales the fragrance of the flowers, and so is lulled to fatal languor, unconscious that all is a mere mirage.
To her he was no mere wayside victim, but in his resemblance to him whose picture she had held toward heaven in the church, a reminder of the happy days when first she had known love. She longed desperately to retain him, and though she feared the dark gulf of misery in which he had found her, with him she would have even faced it again, rather than safety with another; so that her cajolements had the grace of sincerity, though the parting, which he knew must come, remained constantly the dark background of the present. It may seem that to leave the woman required little heroism; that whatever charms she might possess for him, that those of dignity, of worthy citizenship, of respect, of all that even worldly men hold dear, would allure him with greater power. All of which is reasonable, and, no doubt, such considerations do often operate in cases where discreet sinners, having sinned in secret, quietly emerge from the bog of evil-doing, cleanse their garments and, animated by good resolutions, go forth among their fellows, keeping their own counsel; but these are sinners of experience. The innocent man, like the innocent woman, falls far when he falls; such men sacrifice present respect and hope for the future, choosing ruin; and while there are numerous roads to that goal, the most frequented is that one where woman roams.
But whatever heroism may have been necessary, this man possessed it. He turned his face resolutely from the allurements of the present, and, if trembling, faced the future.