"Fill for me, too," cried the Captain; "aye, and for the Citoyenne here.
Come, my girl, a cup of wine will refresh you."

But Suzanne shrank from the invitation as much as from the tenor of
it and the epithet he had applied to her. Observing this, he laughed
softly.

"Oh! As you will. But the wine is good-from cellar of a ci-devant Duke.
My service to you, Citoyenne," he pledged her, and raising his cup, he
poured the wine down a throat that was parched by the much that he had
drunk already, But ere the goblet was half-empty, a sharp, sudden cry
from La Boulaye came to interrupt his quaffing. He glanced round, and
at what he saw he spilled the wine down his waistcoat, then let the cup
fall to the ground, as with an oath he flung himself upon the girl.

She had approached the table whilst both men were drinking, and quietly
possessed herself of a knife; and, but that it was too blunt to do the
service to which she put it, Charlot's intervention would have come too
late. As it was he caught her wrist in time, and in a rage he tore the
weapon from her fingers, and flung it far across the room.

"So, pretty lady!" he gasped, now gripping both her wrists. "So! we are
suicidally inclined, are we! We would cheat Captain Charlot, would we?
Fi donc!" he continued with horrid playfulness. "To shed a blood so blue
upon a floor so unclean! Name of a name of a name!"

Accounting herself baffled at every point, this girl, who had hitherto
borne herself so stoutly as to have stoically sought death as a last
means of escape, began to weep softly. Whereupon:

"Nay, nay, little-woman," murmured the Captain, in such accents as are
employed to a petted child, and instinctively, in his intent to soothe
he drew her nearer. And now the close contact thrilled him; her beauty,
and some subtle perfume that reached him from her, played havoc with his
senses. Nearer he drew her in silence, his face white and clammy, and
his hot, wine laden breath coming quicker every second. And unresisting
she submitted, for she was beyond resistance now, beyond tears even.
From between wet lashes her great eyes gazed into his with a look of
deadly, piteous affright; her lips were parted, her cheeks ashen, and
her mind was dimly striving to formulate a prayer to the Holy Mother,
the natural protectress of all imperilled virgins.

Nearer she felt herself drawn to her tormentor, in whose thoughts there
dwelt now little recollection of the vengeful characte