For all that, he might not have spoken now, if he had not caught her look of affright; strange as it sounds, that look, which of all things should have silenced him and warned him that the time was not yet, stung him out of patience.

Suddenly the man in him carried him away.
"You still fear me, then ?" he said, in a voice hoarse and unnatural.

"Is it for what I do or for what I leave undone that you hate me, Madame?
Tell me, I beg, for--" "For neither!" she said, trembling.

His eyes, hot and passionate, were on her, and the blood had mounted to his brow.

"For neither! I do not hate you, Monsieur!" "You fear me then?
I am right in that." "I fear--that which you carry with you," she stammered, speaking on impulse and scarcely knowing what she said.
He started, and his expression changed.