th an Englishman's instinctive
fear of trespassing. For, although he had had a French grandmother, and
sometimes boasted himself of French descent, he was essentially English
in his ideas. Cora laughed him to scorn.

"I go where I will," she said, "and nobody finds it in his heart to turn
me out. Courage, mon ami, I will protect you, if necessary. Follow me!"

Piqued by her tone, he opened the gate for her, and they passed from the
hot, white road into the green demesnes of the Count who owned the
chateau above Culoz. It struck Alan that his wife knew the way
wonderfully well. She turned without hesitation into a path which led
them to a wooden seat shaded by two great trees, and so situated that it
could not be seen by anyone passing on the high road. Here she seated
herself and looked up at her husband with a defiant smile.

"You have been here before?" he said suddenly.

She nodded. "Precisely, mon ami, I have been here before. And with whom?
With M. de Hauteville, when you imagined me suffering from a migraine a
few days ago. Surely you did not think that it was his first appearance
when he arrived at the hotel, the day before yesterday?"

"I do not wish to discuss M. de Hauteville," said Alan turning away.

"But perhaps I wish to discuss him. We discussed _you_ at full
length--that day last week. We chronicled your vices, your weaknesses,
your meannesses in detail. One thing I might have told him, which I left
out--the fact that you are no gentleman, not even bourgeois--a mere
peasant clown. He would not have let you measure swords with him if he
had known the baseness of your origin, my friend!"

Alan's lips moved as if he would have spoken, but he restrained himself.
He saw that she wanted him to respond, to lose his temper, to give her
some cause of complaint, some opening for recrimination; and he resolved
that he would not yield to her desire. She might abuse him as she would
and he would not reply. She would cease when she was tired--and not till
then.

"You are a mean-spirited creature!" she said, her eyes flashing hatred
at him as she spoke. "You have chained me to you all these years,
although you know that I loathe the very sight of you, that I have
worshiped Henri, my lover, all the while. Who but a base, vile wretch
would not have given me my freedom? You have known all the time that he
loved me, and you have pretended ignorance because you did not want to
let me go. From the moment I found this