'You hound! You--gentleman! Oh, MON DIEU! if you are one of us--if you are really not of the CANAILLE--we shall pay for this some day! We shall pay a heavy reckoning in the time to come! I did not think,' she continued, and her every syllable was like the lash of a whip, 'that there was anything so vile as you in this world!' I stammered something--I do not know what.

Her words burned into me--into my heart! Had she been a man, I would have struck her dead! 'You thought that you deceived me yesterday,' she continued, lowering her tone, but with no lessening of the passion, the contempt, the indignation, which curled her lip and gave fullness to her voice.

'You plotter! You surface trickster! You thought it an easy task to delude a woman--you find yourself deluded.

God give you shame that you may suffer!' she continued mercilessly.

'You talked of Clon, but Clon beside you is the most spotless, the most honourable of men!' 'Madame,' I said hoarsely--and I know that my face was grey as ashes--'let us understand one another.' 'God forbid!' she cried on the instant.