neck. "Show me where the money is, and I'll do all you say, if--"

"Yes, if anything happens to me," he said, and dropped his hand
caressingly upon her head. He loved her in that moment.

She raised her eyes to his. He stooped and kissed her. She was still in
his arms as the door opened and Monsieur and Madame Lavilette entered,
pale and angry.

CHAPTER XVIII

That night the British soldiers camped in the village. All over the
country the rebels had been scattered and beaten, and Bonaventure had
been humbled and injured. After the blind injustice of the fearful
and the beaten, Nicolas Lavilette and his family were blamed for the
miseries which had come upon the place. They had emerged from their
isolation to tempt popular favour, had contrived many designs and
ambitions, and in the midst of their largest hopes were humiliated,
and were followed by resentment. The position was intolerable. In
happy circumstances, Christine's marriage with Ferrol might have been a
completion of their glory, but in reality it was the last blow to their
progress.

In the dusk, Ferrol and Christine sat in his room: she, defiant,
indignant, courageous; he hiding his real feelings, and knowing that all
she now planned and arranged would come to naught. Three times that day
he had had violent paroxysms of coughing; and at last had thrown himself
on his bed, exhausted, helplessly wishing that something would end it
all. Illusion had passed for ever. He no longer had a cold, but a mortal
trouble that was killing him inch by inch. He remembered how a brother
officer of his, dying of an incurable disease, and abhorring suicide,
had gone into a cafe and slapped an unoffending bully and duellist in
the face, inviting a combat. The end was sure, easy and honourable. For
himself--he looked at Christine. Not all her abounding vitality, her
warm, healthy body, or her overwhelming love, could give him one extra
day of life, not one day. What a fool he had been to think that she
could do so! And she must sit and watch him--she, with her primitive
fierceness of love, must watch him sinking, fading helplessly out of
life, sight and being.

A bottle of whiskey was beside him. During the two hours just gone he
had drunk a whole pint of it. He poured out another half-glass, filled
it up with milk, and drank it off slowly. At that moment a knock came
to the door. Christine opened it, and admitted one of the fugitives of
Nicolas's company of rebels.