"I should have sent it to you. I should have thought," she continued earnestly, "that it was that you needed, Messer Syndic; that it was that the State needed. But there was nothing."
"Well, be there papers with it or be there not, I must have that phial!"
Anne stared. "But I do not think"—she ventured with hesitation—and then as she gained courage, she went on more firmly—"that I can take it! I dare not, Messer Syndic."
"Why not?"
"Papers for the State—were one thing," she stammered in confusion; "but to take this—a bottle—would be stealing!"
The Syndic's eyes sparkled. His passion overcame him. "Girl, don't play with me!" he cried. "Don't dare to play with me!" And then as she shrank back alarmed by his tone, and shocked by this sudden peeping forth of the tragic and the real, lo, in a twinkling he was another man, trembling, and holding out shaking hands to her. "Get it for me!" he said. "Get it for me, girl! I will tell you what it is! If I had told you before, I had had it now, and I should be whole and well! whole and well. You have a heart and can pity! Women can pity. Then pity me! I am rich, but I am dying! I am a dying man, rising up and lying down, counting the days as I walk the streets, and seeing the shroud rise higher and higher upon my breast!"
He paused for breath, endeavouring to gain some command of himself; while she, carried off her feet by this rush of words, stared at him in stupefaction. Before he came he had made up his mind to tell her the truth—or something like the truth. But he had not intended to tell the truth in this way until, face to face with her and met by her scruples, he let the impulse to tell the whole carry him away.
He steadied his lips with a shaking hand. "You know now why I want it," he resumed, speaking huskily and with restrained emotion. "'Tis life! Life, girl! In that"—he fought with himself before he could bring out the word—"in that phial is my life! Is life for whoever takes it! It is the remedium, it is strength, life, youth, and but one—but one dose in all the world! Do you wonder—I am dying!—that I want it? Do you wonder—I am dying!—that I will have it? But"—with a strange grimace intended to reassure her—"I frighten you, I frighten you."
"No!" she said, though in truth she had unconsciously retreated almost to the door of the staircase before his extended hands. "But I—I scarcely understand, Messer Blondel. If you will please to tell me——"
"Yes, yes!"