“It is agreed!” said Dunoisse in a barely audible voice.
“Her husband is out of the running,—a scratched horse,” said de Moulny, sneering and smiling.... “He has battened on the sale of her beauty, and climbed by the ladder of his shame. Therefore, should those pale lips frame Eugéne—it counts less than nothing.... We stand or fall by their dropping into the hair-weight balance of Destiny a ‘Hector’ or ‘Alain.’”
A silence fell. The ashes of the dying fire dropped upon the tiled hearth with a little clicking echo.... Three rivals waited by the moaning figure on the sofa in the disarranged, disordered bedchamber.... De Moulny, and Dunoisse, and Another Whose Face was hidden by a veil....
“Ah, Jesu Christ!...”
The Name came from the pale lips of Henriette in a sighing whisper. Then silence fell again like a black velvet pall.... Dunoisse and de Moulny, the fire of lust and anger dead ashes between them, looked with awe and horror, each in the other’s face. And stronger and clearer upon the strained and guilty consciences of both, grew the impression of an unseen Presence, awful, condemnatory, relentless, all-potent, standing between them in the rose-colored room.
De Moulny spoke at last, in a shaking whisper, a strange light burning behind the eyes that were like polished blue stones:
“Do you hear?... She is God’s, this woman for whose body and soul we have disputed.... Christ has claimed her!... She is no longer yours or mine!...”