"Will you come up for a moment, please?"

"Surely."

She came up, leaving the room door open, and bringing the cub with her.

He called Jacques.

"Take the cub to its quarters, Jacques," he said, quietly.

She seemed about to protest, but sat back and watched him. He shut the
door--locked it. Then he came and sat down before her.

"Andree," he said, "this is all impossible."

"What is impossible?"

"You know well. I am not a mere brute. The only thing that can redeem
this life is love."

"That is true," she said, coldly. "What then?"

"You do not redeem it. We must part."

She laughed fitfully. "We must--?"

She leaned towards him.

"To-morrow evening you will go back to Paris. To-night we part, however:
that is, our relations cease."

"I shall go from here when it pleases me, Gaston!"

His voice came low and stern, but courteous:

"You must go when I tell you. Do you think I am the weaker?"

He could see her colour flying, her fingers lacing and interlacing.

"Aren't you afraid to tell me that?" she asked.

"Afraid? Of my life--you mean that? That you will be as common as that?
No: you will do as I tell you."

He fixed his eyes on hers, and held them. She sat, looking. Presently
she tried to take her eyes away. She could not. She shuddered and
shrank.

He withdrew his eyes for a moment. "You will go?" he asked.

"It makes no difference," she answered; then added sharply: "Who are
you, to look at me like that, to--!"

She paused.

"I am your friend and your master!"

He rose. "Good-night," he said, at the door, and went out.

He heard the key turn in the lock. He had forgotten his papers and
letters. It did not matter. He would read them when she was gone--if she
did go. He was far from sure that he had succeeded. He went to bed in
another room, and was soon asleep.

He was waked in the very early morning by feeling a face against his,
wet, trembling.

"What is it, Andree?" he asked. Her arms ran round his neck.

"Oh, mon amour! Mon adore! Je t'aime! Je t'aime!"

In the evening of this day she said she knew not how it was, but on that
first evening in Audierne there suddenly came to her a strange terrible
feeling, which seemed to dry up all the springs of her desire for him.
She could not help it. She had fought against it, but it was no use; yet
she knew that she could not leave him. After he had told her to go, she
had had a bitter struggle: now tears, now anger, and a wish to