For the moment Mora did not perceive him. When she did, she put a hand quickly to her heart and gave a great gasp.
‘Ah!’ What a volume of meaning that little word conveyed!
Monsieur De Miravel—for such was the name he now chose to be known by—advanced a step or two smilingly, and bowed with all a Frenchman’s grace. ‘Me voici!’ he said. ‘Hector—thy husband—not dead, but alive and’——
She stopped him with an imperious gesture. ‘Wretch—coward—felon!’ she exclaimed, and her voice seemed to express the concentrated passion and hatred of years. ‘I could never quite believe that I had been fortunate enough to lose you for ever. I had a presentiment that I should some day see you again. Why have you followed me? But I need not ask. It is to rob me again, as you robbed me before. Voleur!’
She stood before him drawn up to the full height of her magnificent beauty, her bosom heaving, her eyes dilating, her head thrown slightly back, her clenched hands hanging by her sides, her shoulders a little raised. Even the scoundrel whom she had addressed could not help admiring her as she towered before him in all the splendour of her passion.
A small red spot flamed on either cheek, but his voice had still a smile in it when next he spoke. ‘Ah ha!’ he said. ‘You are still the same charming Mora that you always were! You still call me by the same pretty names! How it brings back the days of long ago!’
‘How much money do you want of me?’ she demanded abruptly. ‘What price do you expect me to pay that I may rid myself of your presence?’
‘Softly, ma chère, softly. I have not been at all this great trouble and expense to discover you, without having something to say to you. I want to talk what you English call business.’
‘Name your price and leave me.’
‘Taisez-vous, je vous prie. You are here, and you must listen to me. You cannot help yourself.’