“No more than I have said; no less. If you love him well enough to sacrifice yourself,” and his lips curled sardonically at the word, “then marry me and save him from his doom.”
“What doom?” Her voice came mechanically, her lips seeming scarce to move.
He swung down from the table and stood before her.
“I will tell you,” he said, in a voice very full of promise. “I love you, Valerie, above all else on earth or, I think, in heaven; and I’ll not yield you to him. Say ‘No’ to me now, and at daybreak I start for La Rochette to win you from him at point of sword.”
Despite her fears she could not repress a little smile of scorn.
“Is that all?” said she. “Why, if you are so rash, it is yourself, assuredly, will be slain.”
He smiled tranquilly at that reflection upon his courage and his skill.
“So might it befall if I went alone,” said he. She understood. Her eyes dilated with horror, with loathing of him. The angry words that sprang to her lips were not to be denied.
“You cur, you cowardly assassin!” she blazed at him. “I might have guessed that in some such cutthroat manner would your vaunt of winning me at the sword-point be accomplished.”
She watched the colour fade from his cheeks, and the ugly, livid hue that spread in its room to his very lips. Yet it did not daunt her. She was on her feet, confronting him ere he had time to speak again. Her eyes flashed, and her arm pointed quivering to the door.