It chilled her. She drew away from him, and said, suddenly, "Oh, Felix!" and looked at him.
Nothing more. But he understood her and coloured; and tried to ask, but asked awkwardly, "What is the matter?"
"I know of what you are thinking," she said with grave sorrow. "And it is base of you, it is cruel! You would use even me whom you love—to ruin my friends!"
"Hush!" he answered, letting his gloomy passion have vent for the moment, "they are not your friends, Madeline. See what they have done for me. It is they, or the troubles they have set on foot, that have killed my father!" And he swore—carried away by his mistaken resentment—never again to spare a Huguenot save her father and one other.
She trembled and tried to close her ears. Her father had told her a hundred times that she could not be happy with a husband divided from her by a gulf so wide. She had said to him that it was too late. She had given Felix her heart and she was a woman. She could not take it back, though she knew that nothing but unhappiness could come of the match.
"God forgive you!" she cried in that moment of strained insight; and sank in her chair as though she would weep.
He fell on his knees beside her with words of endearment; for he had conquered himself again. And she let him soothe her, and would gladly have believed him. She had never loved him more than now, when she knew the price she must pay for him. She closed her eyes—for the moment—to that terrible future, that certain future; and he was holding her in his arms, when without warning a heavy footstep began to ascend the stairs.
They sprang apart. If even then he had had presence of mind, he might have reached the window. But he hesitated, looking in her startled eyes, and waiting. "Is it your father?" he whispered.
She shook her head. "He cannot have returned. We should have heard the gates opened. There is no one in the house," she murmured faintly, listening while she spoke.
But still the footsteps came on: and stopped at the door. Felix looked round him with eyes of despair. Close beside him, just behind the stove, was the door of a closet. He took two strides, and before he or she had thought of the consequences, he was in the closet. Softly he drew the door to again; and she sank terrified on a chair, as the door of the room opened.