He was disturbed to the very depths of his being. Never had she appeared to him so beautiful and so desirable; and he asked himself if it were not folly to seize a freedom which he would curse on the morrow.
“My beauty is not a lie, Ralph,” she declared. “And you will come back to me because it is for you that I am beautiful.”
“I shall never come back.”
“Yes, you can no longer live without me. The Nonchalante is close by, I shall be waiting for you to-morrow.”
“I shall never come back,” said he, once more ready to bend the knee.
“In that case, why are you trembling? Why are you so pale?” she said stretching out her arms toward him.
He perceived that his salvation depended on his silence, that he must flee without answering, and never turn his head.
He thrust off the two hands which were grasping him, and went.
CHAPTER XI.
THE OLD LIGHTHOUSE
All that night, Ralph pedaled away, as much to wear himself out with a salutary weariness as to throw the gang off his track. Next morning, utterly worn out he came to a stop at an hotel at Lillebonne.