Then she felt her blood boil in her head, and a remnant of indignation flashed up in that soul already benumbed and cold.
The archdeacon approached her slowly; even in that extremity, she beheld him cast an eye sparkling with sensuality, jealousy, and desire, over her exposed form. Then he said aloud,—
“Young girl, have you asked God’s pardon for your faults and shortcomings?”
He bent down to her ear, and added (the spectators supposed that he was receiving her last confession): “Will you have me? I can still save you!”
She looked intently at him: “Begone, demon, or I will denounce you!”
He gave vent to a horrible smile: “You will not be believed. You will only add a scandal to a crime. Reply quickly! Will you have me?”
“What have you done with my Phœbus?”
“He is dead!” said the priest.
At that moment the wretched archdeacon raised his head mechanically and beheld at the other end of the Place, in the balcony of the Gondelaurier mansion, the captain standing beside Fleur-de-Lys. He staggered, passed his hand across his eyes, looked again, muttered a curse, and all his features were violently contorted.
“Well, die then!” he hissed between his teeth. “No one shall have you.” Then, raising his hand over the gypsy, he exclaimed in a funereal voice:—“I nunc, anima anceps, et sit tibi Deus misericors!”[48]