"And leave you?"
"Yes, and leave me," she answered, with a gesture of despair. "I implore you to do so."
"And leave you to Froment?" I cried again.
She looked at me in a different way, and with a little start. "You know that?" she said.
"Yes," I answered.
"Then know this too, Monsieur," she replied, raising her head, and meeting my eyes with the bravest look. "Know this too: that whatever betide, I shall not, after this, marry him, nor any man but you!"
I would have fallen on my knees and kissed the hem of her gown for that word, but she drew back, and passionately begged me to begone. "This house is not safe for you," she said. "It is death, it is death, Monsieur! My mother is merciless, my brother is here; and he--the house is full of his sworn creatures. You escaped him hardly before; if he finds you here now he will kill you."
"But if I need fear him so," I answered grimly,--for I saw, now that she had ceased to blush, how pale and wan she was, and what dark marks fear had painted under her eyes--child's eyes no longer, but a woman's--"if I need fear him so, what of you? What of you, Mademoiselle? Am I to leave you at his mercy?"
She looked at me with a strange gravity in her face; and answered me so that I never forgot her answer. "Monsieur," she said, "was I afraid on the roof of the house at St. Alais? And I have more to guard now. Have no fear. There is a roof here, too, and I walk on it; nor shall my husband ever have cause to blush for me."
"But I was there," I said quickly. Heaven knows why; it was a strange thing to say. Yet she did not find it so.