She should not see--no, not even she!--that for the space of a few seconds stern manhood was well-nigh vanquished by the magic of her love.
All that was most human in him, all that was weak in this strong and untamed nature, cried aloud for peace and luxury and idleness: for long summer afternoons spent in lazy content, for the companionship of horses and dogs and of flowers, with no thought or cares save those for the next evening's gavotte, no graver occupation save that of sitting at HER feet.
And during these few seconds, whilst his hand lay across her eyes, the lazy, idle fop of fashionable London was fighting a hand-to-hand fight with the bold leader of a band of adventurers: and his own passionate love for his wife ranged itself with fervent intensity on the side of his weaker self.

Forgotten were the horrors of the guillotine, the calls of the innocent, the appeal of the helpless; forgotten the daring adventures, the excitements, the hair's-breadth escapes; for those few seconds, heavenly in themselves, he only remembered her--his wife--her beauty and her tender appeal to him.
She would have pleaded again, for she felt that she was winning in this fight: her instinct--that unerring instinct of the woman who loves and feels herself beloved--told her that for the space of an infinitesimal fraction of time, his iron will was inclined to bend; but he checked her pleading with a kiss.
Then there came a change.
Like a gigantic wave carried inwards by the tide, his turbulent emotion seemed suddenly to shatter itself against a rock of self-control.

Was it a call from the boatmen below?
a distant scrunching of feet upon the gravel ?--who knows, perhaps only a sigh in the midnight air, a ghostly summons from the land of dreams that recalled him to himself.
Even as Marguerite was still clinging to him, with the ardent fervour of her own passion, she felt the rigid tension of his arms relax, the power of his embrace weaken, the wild love-light become dim in his eyes.
He kissed her fondly, tenderly, and with infinite gentleness smoothed away the little damp curls from her brow.

There was a wistfulness now in his caress, and in his kiss there was the finality of a long farewell.
"'Tis time I went," he said, "or we shall miss the tide." These were the first coherent words he had spoken since first she had met him here in this lonely part of the garden, and his voice was perfectly steady, conventional and cold.

An icy pang shot through Marguerite's heart.