you
are going to do something? What will it be? What?" And then as he
discerned the other's surprise, and read suspicion in his eyes, he
curbed himself, lowered his tone, and with an effort was himself. "Young
man," he said, wiping his brow, "I am still ridden--by what happened
last night. I have lain, since we parted, under an overwhelming sense of
the presence of evil. Of evil," he repeated, still speaking a little
wildly, "such as this God-fearing town should not know even by repute!
You think me over-anxious? But I have felt the hot blast of the furnace
on my cheek, my head bears even now the smell of the burning. Hell gapes
near us!" He was beginning to tremble afresh, partly with impatience of
this parleying, partly with anxiety to pluck from the other his answer.
The glitter was returning to his eyes. "Hell gapes near us," he
repeated. "And I ask you, young man, what are you going to do?"

"I?"

"Yes, you!"

Claude stared. "What would you have me do?" he asked.

"What would you have done last night?" the Syndic retorted. "Did you ask
me then? Did you wait for my permission? Did you wait even for my
presence?"

"No, but----"

"But what?"

"Things are changed."

"Changed? How?" Blondel's tone sank to one of unnatural calm; but his
frame shook and his face was purple with the pressure he put upon
himself. "What is changed? Who has changed it?" he continued; to see his
chance of life hang on the will of this imbecile was almost more than he
could bear. "Speak out! Let me know what has happened."

"You know what happened as well as I do," Claude answered slowly. He had
given his word to the girl that he would not interfere, but he began to
see difficulties of which he had not thought. "It was enough for me! He
may be all you said he was, Messer Syndic, but----"

"But you no longer burn to break the spell?" Blondel cried. "You no
longer desire to snatch from him the woman you love? You will stand by
and see her perish body and soul in this web of iniquity? You are
frightened, and will leave her to the law!" He thrust out his thin
flushed face, his pointed beard wagging malignantly. "For that is what
will come of it! To the law, you understand! I warn you, the magistrates
in Geneva bear not the sword in vain."

The young man's brow grew damp. The crisis was nearer than he had
feared. "But--she has done nothing!" he faltered.

"The tool with the hand that uses it! The idol and him who made it!" the
Synd