"Then your whole service has been abstention from positive treachery for your own ends?"
"You dare me? Caution, citizeness! You are in my power."
"In your power? You are a coward as well as a knave, then?"
"Remember still more," he hissed, losing all control of himself, "that your lover also is in my power; he is captured."
"My God! you have brought us to this!" she cried.
The door creaked and the Admiral entered.
"Be off, you cur!" said he, standing sternly over the Abbé, who shrank as if struck. "Go to your work, you——"
A look of terror upon his countenance, Jude precipitated himself through the doorway.
The Admiral closed it, and returning, sat down by the candle and began to talk to Cyrène. Seeing his features so close and large and accentuated by the candle-light, their coarseness and horror filled her with wonder.
"So that fellow boasts of his fidelity!" he exclaimed, in a repulsively modulated and familiar tone. "What a wealth of tenderness such a kidnapping shows! Possibly you knew his profession, citizeness?—that of salaried spy. Your protector he claims to be? Excellent—when he could not turn a straw in your favour. He has deprived you of your freedom; that was easier in these times. I, on the other hand," he added, smiling yet more hideously, "am here to return it to you."