CHAPTER XXXII—THE DIVIDING SWORD
SLOWLY, reluctantly, Tormarin’s hands loosened their clasp of Madame de Varigny’s throat, and with a swift, flexible twist of the body she slipped aside and stood a few paces away from him.
Jean looked from one to the other with horrified eyes. “Madame de Varigny?—Blaise?” she stammered. “What is it?... Why, you—you might have killed her, Blaise!”
He stared at her blankly. His release of the Italian woman had been in mere blind response to Jean’s first imperative appeal that he should desist But the mists of ungovernable anger had hardly yet cleared from his brain; the blood still drummed in his ears like the roar of the sea.
“Blaise”—Jean spoke imploringly. “What were you doing? Tell me———”
With an effort he seemed to recover himself.
“It’s a pity you didn’t let me finish it, Jean,” he said harshly. “Such women are better dead.”
Madame de Varigny was fingering her neck delicately where the pressure of Blaise’s grip had scored red marks on the cream-like flesh. She seemed quite composed. Her smile still held its quiet triumph and her long dark eyes gleamed with the same mockery that had brought her within measureable distance of quick death.
“As Monsieur Tor-ma-rin seems to find a difficulty in explaining—permit me,” she said at last “He was angry with me because I bring him the good news that his wife is still alive, that he need mourn no longer.”