ed
what that rascal wanted: money! You should have asked me for it! I would
have given you everything, all my fortune, all! But not my name! Not my
name!"

He roughly repelled her.

She remained on her knees. Her hands hung down and rested on the carpet.
She looked at it stupefied, hardly distinguishing its rose pattern.

She was certain that she was about to die. Jose's sudden anger had the
fitfulness of a wild beast's. He crushed her with a terrible glance from
his bloodshot eyes.

Then he began to laugh hysterically, like a young girl.

"Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!--In a wanton's house yonder in Rue Prony, at
Vanda's! Vanda's! At Vanda's, in a harlot's bed, she gave herself, sold
herself!--A Rosas, for she is a Rosas! A Duchesse de Rosas now! Idiot!
Idiot that I am!"

Marianne would have spoken, entreated, but fear froze her, coming over
her flesh and through her veins. She realized that an implacable
resolution possessed this trusting man. She found a master this time.

"Jose!" said Marianne softly, in a timid voice.

He drew himself up as if the mention of this name were an insult.

"Come!" he said calmly, "so let it be. What is done, is done. So much
the worse for the fools! But listen carefully."

This little, pale, blond man seemed, in the growing darkness, like a
portrait of former days stepped forth from its frame.

His hand of steel again seized Marianne's wrists.

"You are called the Duchesse de Rosas?--You were ambitious for that
name, you eagerly desired and struggled hard for that title, did you
not? Well, I will not, at least, suffer you to drag it like so many
others into intruders' salons, under ironical glances, before mocking
smiles and lorgnettes, in view of the papers, and into the gossip of the
Paris whose gutter-odor tempts you so strongly that you have not yet
been able to leave it. _Parbleu!_ you have another lover in it, I
wager!--Vaudrey!--Or Lissac and many others!--Is it as I say?"

"I swear to you--"

"Ah! you have lied to me, do not swear! We are about to leave. Not for
Italy. It is good for those who love each other. You do not know
Fuentecarral?--You are about to make its acquaintance. It is your
chateau now. Yours, yours, since you are a Rosas!"

He again broke into laughter, such as a judge might indulge in who
should mock at a condemned man.

"We are about to leave for Toledo. You asked me, one day, about the
castle in which I was born. It is a prison, simply a prison. I