“Yes,” she said. “And the more imprudent since we were not on those terms of friendship which would excuse such behavior. But what would you? I was alone in the world, unhappy and persecuted. A helping hand was stretched out to me—for a few hours as I thought. We started.”
Aurelie hesitated for a few moments; then she went on with her story more quickly.
“The journey was terrible—for reasons which you know. When William lifted me into the carriage he had stolen from the doctor, I was utterly done. He dragged me wherever he wanted, towards another station and from there, since we had our tickets, to Nice, where I got my luggage. I was in a fever, almost delirious. I acted without knowing what I was doing. He took advantage of it next day to make me accompany him to an estate where he had to recover, during the absence of the owner, some securities of which he [[133]]had been robbed. I went there, as I should have gone anywhere. I had lost the power to think. I obeyed him passively. It was at that villa that I was attacked and carried off by Jodot——”
“And saved, for the second time, by me—whom you rewarded a second time by flying as soon as you were rescued. But no matter. Jodot also demanded revelations, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“Then I went back to the hotel to which William had begged me to follow him.”
“But by this time you knew the kind of man he was!” protested Ralph.
“How? One sees clearly enough when one definitely looks; but for two days I had been living in a kind of madness that had been aggravated by Jodot’s attack. I followed William therefore without even asking him the object of the journey. I was alone, ashamed of my cowardice, and harassed by the presence of this man who was becoming more and more a stranger to me. What part did I play at Monte Carlo? It is not very clear to me. William had intrusted some letters to me, which I was to hand over to him in the corridor of the hotel that he might himself hand them over to a gentleman. What letters? What gentleman? Why was Marescal there? How did you snatch me from him? All that is quite obscure. However, my instincts [[134]]had awakened; I felt a growing hostility to William. I detested him. And I left Monte Carlo resolved to break the agreement which united us and come and hide myself here. He pursued me as far as Toulouse and when I told him my decision to leave him, and he was convinced that nothing would make me return to him, coldly and harshly, with a fury that made him look hideous, he said: ‘Well and good, let us separate. It’s really all the same to me. But I make one condition.’ ”
“A condition?”