"Aline! Aline!"
She looked up then, and he saw then the same smile lie deep within her eyes. Unfathomably peaceful they were, but not with the peace of the living.
"Won't you come to me, my dear," he said gently, and with the simplicity he would have used to a child.
A little shiver just stirred the stillness of her form, and she came slowly, very slowly, across the room, and then stood waiting, and with a sudden passion Dangeau laid both hands upon her shoulders insistently, heavily.
He wondered had she lost the memory of the last time he had touched and held her thus. Then he had fought with pride and been defeated. Now he must fight again, fight for her very soul and reason, and this time he must win, or the whole world would be lost. He paused, gathering all the forces of his soul, then looked at her with passionate uneasiness.
If she would tremble, if she would even shrink from him—anything but that calm which was there, and shone serenely fixed, like the smile upon the faces of the dead.
It hinted of the final secret known.
"Mon Dieu! Aline, don't look like that!" he cried, and in strong protest his arms slipped lower, and drew her close to his heart that beat, and beat, as if it would supply the life hers lacked. She came passively at his touch, and stood in his embrace unresisting and unresponsive.
Remembering how she had flushed at a look and quivered at a touch, his fears redoubled, and he caught her close, and closer, kissing her, at first gently, but in the end with all the force of a passion so long restrained. For now at last the dam was down, and they stood together in love's full flowing tide.
When he drew back, the smile was gone, and the lips that it had left trembled piteously, as her colour came and went to each quickened breath.