"How do you know about—him?" and the words came hardly from her.
"Rosalie," he said, catching at his self-control,—"Rosalie told me—curse him—curse him! Thank God you are safe. He cannot touch you now. What is it, then, my dear?" and the voice that had cursed Hébert seemed to caress her.
"If you know—that"—the word came on a shudder—"you know why I did—what I did—yesterday. But no—I forget; no one knew it all, no one knew the worst. I could n't say it, but now I must—I must."
"My dear, leave it—leave it. Why should you say anything?"
But she took a long breath and went on, speaking very low, and hurriedly, with bent head, and cheeks that flamed with a shamed, crimson patch.
"He is a devil, I think; and when I said I would die, he said—oh, mon Dieu!—he said his turn came first, he had friends, he could get me into his power after I was condemned."
Dangeau's arm went up—the arm with which he would have killed Hébert had he stood before him—and then fell protectingly about her shoulders.
"Aline, let him go—don't think of him again. You are safe—Death has given you back to me." But she shrank away.
"Oh, Monsieur," she said, with a quick gasp, "it was not death that I feared—indeed it was not death. I could have died, I should have died, before I betrayed—everything—as I did yesterday. I should have died, but there are some things too hard to bear. Oh, I do not think God can expect a woman to bear—that!" Again the deep shudder shook her. "Then you came, and I took the one way out, or let you take it."
"Aline!"