His boy—their boy—lay up-stairs, saved from death by a miracle. Her clasped hands rested on one of his knees and her head touched his arms. His eyes were closed, but he nearly swooned when he breathed the perfume of her hair that brought back the picture of a dark head on the white pillow in the dim moonlight or the gray of dawn.
Then came the terrible thought that for two years that picture had been the joy of another.... Fragments of his talk with Madame Varenne flashed through his mind. Was there a little fault on his side?... He need not speak a word. He had but to open his eyes and look forgiveness and her warm body would be pressed again to his breast, her soft arms would be around his neck and her soft lips would shower kisses on his face. ... He drew a sharp breath and rose slowly and uncertainly.
"Jacqueline!" he said in an unsteady voice, not daring to let his wavering eyes look down. "Jacqueline, you must go!"
A long, convulsive sob and:
"Ah, why did I go at all? Why did I ever go?" she moaned. "You would have killed me and that would have been the end of it! Louis, forgive me! Forgive me!" And she clasped his limp hand in both of hers and looked up piteously.
"No! No!" he cried, fighting desperately with an impulse to stoop and crush the slender body in his arms and kiss the tears from the upturned face. "Surely, you see that I——"
"What will become of me?" she pleaded, as her instinct told her that he was weakening.
"Go back to him! Go back to the man who would have killed himself for you!" he cried in a voice that he tried in vain to make as bitter as the words. And he made no effort to free his hand. The answer was a barely audible whisper:
"He is dead!"
Floriot jerked his hand away with an exclamation of horror and sprang back, his eyes flashing with anger.