and kissed her on the
lips, on the eyes, on the hair, on the neck. At that moment the outer
door opened below, and the murmur of voices came to them.

"Oh, monsieur--oh, your Excellency, let me go!" she whispered fearfully.
"It is my mother and Duclosse the mealman."

Valmond recognised the fat, wheezy tones of Duclosse--Sergeant Duclosse.
He released her, and she caught up the candle.

"What can you do?" she whispered.

"I will wait here. I must not go down," he replied. "It would mean
ruin."

Ruin! ruin! Was she face to face with ruin already, she who, two
minutes ago, was as safe and happy as a young bird in its nest? He felt
instantly that he had made a mistake, had been cruel, though he had not
intended it.

"Ruin to me," he said at once. "Duclosse is a stupid fellow: he would
not understand; he would desert me; and that would be disastrous at this
moment. Go down," he said. "I will wait here, Elise."

Her brows knitted painfully. "Oh, monsieur, I'd rather face death, I
believe, than that you should remain here."

But he pushed her gently towards the door, and a moment afterwards he
heard her talking to Duclosse and her mother.

He sat down on the couch and listened for a moment. His veins were still
glowing from the wild moment just passed. Elise would come back--and
then--what? She would be alone with him again in this room, loving
him--fearing him. He remembered that once, when a child, he had seen a
peasant strike his wife, felling her to the ground; and how afterwards
she had clasped him round the neck and kissed him, as he bent over
her in merely vulgar fright lest he had killed her. That scene flashed
before him.

There came an opposing thought. As Madame Chalice had said, either as
prince or barber, he was playing a terrible game. Why shouldn't he get
all he could out of it while it lasted--let the world break over him
when it must? Why should he stand in an orchard of ripe fruit, and
refuse to pick what lay luscious to his hand, what this stupid mealman
below would pick, and eat, and yawn over? There was the point. Wouldn't
the girl rather have him, Valmond, at any price, than the priest-blessed
love of Duclosse and his kind?

The thought possessed, devoured him for a moment. Then suddenly there
again rang in his ears the words which had haunted him all day:

"Holy bread, I take thee;
If I die suddenly,
Serve me as a sacrament."

They passed backwards and for