"I will wait here, Elise." Her brows knitted painfully.

"Oh, monsieur, I'd rather face death, I believe, than that you should remain here." But he pushed her gently towards the door, and a moment afterwards he heard her talking to Duclosse and her mother.
He sat down on the couch and listened for a moment.

His veins were still glowing from the wild moment just passed.

Elise would come back--and then--what?
She would be alone with him again in this room, loving him--fearing him.

He remembered that once, when a child, he had seen a peasant strike his wife, felling her to the ground; and how afterwards she had clasped him round the neck and kissed him, as he bent over her in merely vulgar fright lest he had killed her.