"Now you are yourself again. I knew I should cure you of your bad humour. Admit that I am awfully good-natured not to have got angry at you."
"Got angry? What about?"
"Because it is not very flattering to a woman to be able to entertain a man only by telling him about another one."
"Oh, no, it isn't that way at all," he said, kissing her eyes tenderly.
"Let me go now," she said, very low, "this enervates me, and I must get home. It's late."
She sighed and fled, leaving him amazed and wondering in what weird activities the life of that woman had been passed.
[!-- Page 226 --]CHAPTER XVIII]
The day after that on which he had spewed such furious vituperation over the Tribunal, Gilles de Rais appeared again before his judges. He presented himself with bowed head and clasped hands. He had once more jumped from one extreme to the other. A few hours had sufficed to break the spirit of the energumen, who now declared that he recognized the authority of the magistrates and begged forgiveness for having insulted them.
They affirmed that for the love of Our Lord they forgot his imprecations, and, at his prayer, the Bishop and the Inquisitor revoked the sentence of excommunication which they had passed on him the day before.