"I must go back—to Dr. Carroll's. Will you—take me?"
With a glad light in his face, he came at once to her side. "I thank you, mademoiselle, for the honor you offer me. My life is yours."
"Let us go, then," she said, her voice low and trembling dangerously.
Suddenly Charles Fairfield rushed forward and, seizing both her hands, fell upon his knees. "Deborah! Deborah! Deborah! I love you! In the name of God Almighty, give me some hope! I meant everything honestly—honorably—do you hear? The marriage would have been legal. Rockwell will swear that to you. What right have you—Debby! Debby, you promised! Is it true that you don't care?"
Deborah drew away from him as far as she could. Her face was drawn and weary, and no light in her eyes answered his entreaties. Claude, who had watched her narrowly, now interposed. Grasping the other's hands, he forced them, with a single twist, from Deborah's helpless ones, and then, with that kind of brute strength that comes to all men at times, he lifted the Englishman bodily to his feet, thrust him back, took Deborah gently about the waist, and carried her to the door. Opening it, he turned around. Miriam Vawse, from the stairway, saw his face as she had never beheld it before, white, set, triumphant, his greenish eyes blazing like jewels as he cried out to Fairfield, who was stiff with fury:
"We will meet—where you like, when you like, how you like, but not in the presence of ladies, monsieur."
The door closed, and Claude and Deborah were alone together in the still, white moonlight. She walked herself, now, only clinging fast to his arm, and trembling with the strain of the long evening. They were half-way to the doctor's before either spoke. Then Deborah whispered, just audibly:
"You must not fight—for me. I am not worthy."
"I have fought for far slighter things than this. But do not be alarmed. There will not be much blood shed."
Deborah shuddered, but was silent. She longed unutterably to try to justify herself to this man, to explain the reason for her behavior; and, as if divining her thought, he presently asked, quietly: