"Spare me, Lucien, spare me——."
She would have said more, but the chill of his hellish smile froze the words upon her lips.
He never once changed his attitude. His left elbow rested on the corner of the mantel, the fingers of his right hand played with the gold watch-guard he wore.
A full minute elapsed, then with a cry of passionate, painful entreaty, she lifted her beautiful clasped hands, and wringing them in agony, cried:
"Lucien—Lucien—." Then a sob choked her.
For another long minute there was a tomb-like silence. He never moved a muscle of his face. The chill of the smile in his eyes deepened, and seemed, as it was bent upon her, to numb her faculties.
Her whole frame seemed to wilt under the ice of his smile. She shivered with the concentrated hate his eyes expressed.
Lower and lower she crouched at his feet. And as he saw her wilt and shiver the smile of Hell deepened in his cruel eyes.
Suddenly he spoke. The words were uttered in dulcet tones. But their meaning had, to her, the sentence of death, as softly, calmly, there fell from his lips:
"I have no further need of you! You are in my way!"