The young woman understood this, and she endeavoured to cauterise the bad place with the fire of her caresses.

But she scorched her lips, and Laurent thrust her violently away, giving a dismal groan.

It seemed to him that she was pressing a red-hot iron to his neck.

Therese, half mad, came back.
She wanted to kiss the scar again.

She experienced a keenly voluptuous sensation in placing her mouth on this piece of skin wherein Camille had buried his teeth.
At one moment she thought of biting her husband in the same place, of tearing away a large piece of flesh, of making a fresh and deeper wound, that would remove the trace of the old one.