"You have made it very difficult," he reminded her.

She threw a scornful glance at him. "Good! That is generous. You mean to say that I have made myself unfit for the friendship of the women of your family. I thank you, Monsieur Paul. I think that our conversation has lasted long enough. Let me pa.s.s; I am going to leave you."

He moved quickly towards the door, and barred her pa.s.sage. There was a dark flush in his cheeks and a gleam in his eyes. Up till then his manner had been a little deprecating, but at her last words it had suddenly changed. He felt that she was unjust, and he was indignant.

"Adrea, you talk like a child," he said sternly. "I made no such insinuation as you suggest! You know that I did not! Sit down!"

She obeyed him; the quick change in his manner had startled her, and taken her at a disadvantage. She felt the force of his superior will, and she yielded to it.

He leaned over her chair, and his voice grew softer. "Adrea, you are very, very unjust to me," he said. "Do you wish to make me so unhappy, I wonder? For a week I have been thinking of scarcely anything else save our last parting, and now if I had not stopped you, almost by force, you would have left me again in anger."

His tone had grown almost tender, and, as though unconsciously, his hand had rested upon her gleaming coils of dark, braided hair. She looked up at him, and in the firelight he could see that her eyes were soft and dim.

"You have really thought of me?" she said in a low tone. "You have really been unhappy on my account?"

"I have!" he admitted. "Very unhappy!"

Something in his tone--in the reluctance with which he made the admission, angered her. She moved a little further away, and her voice grew harder.

"Yes; you have been unhappy!" she said. "And why? It was because you were ashamed to find yourself thinking of me; you, Paul de Vaux, a citizen of the world and a man of culture, thinking of a poor dancing girl with only her looks to recommend her! That was where the sting lay! That was what reddened your cheek! You men! You are as selfish as devils!"

She stamped her foot; her voice was shaking with pa.s.sion. Paul stood before her with a deep flush on his pale cheeks, silent, like a man suddenly accused. Her words were not altogether true, but they were winged with, at any rate, the semblance of truth.

She continued--a little more quietly, but with her tone and form still vibrating.

"What do you fear? What is that you struggle against? I have seen you when it has been your will to take me--into your arms, to hold my hands. Then I have seen you conquer the desire, and you run away, as though afraid of it. Why? Do you fear that I shall seek to compromise you?--is not that the English word? Do you think that I want you to marry me? Is it because you dare not, that you--you do not offer to take my hand, even? Tell me now! Why is it?"

"For your own sake, Adrea!"

"For my own sake!" she repeated scornfully. "Do you believe it yourself? Do you really think that it is true? I will tell you why it is! It is because you have no thought, no imagination. You say to yourself, she is not of my world. I cannot marry her."

There was a silence. A burning coal fell upon the hearth, and flamed up; the glow reached Paul's face. He was very pale, and his eyes were dry and brilliant. Suddenly he moved forward, and clasped Adrea's hands tightly in his.

"But, Adrea! are you sure that you love me?"

A sudden change swept into her face. Her dark eyes grew wonderfully soft.

"Yes!" she answered, looking up to him with a swift, brilliant smile.

"I am sure!"

He held out his arms; his resistance was at an end. It had grown weaker and weaker during those last few moments; now it was all over, swept away by a sudden, tumultuous pa.s.sion, so strange and little akin to the man that it startled even himself. Afar off in his mind he was conscious of a dim sense of shame as he held her close in his arms and felt her warm, trembling lips pressed against his. But it was like an echo from a distant land. It seemed to him that a deep, widening gulf lay now between him and all that had gone before. His old self was dead! A new man had sprung up, with a new personality, and the time had not yet come for regrets.

CHAPTER XVI

"'TWIXT YOU AND ME A NOISOME SHADOW CAST"

"Adrea!"

It was a cry which seemed to ring through the room, an interruption so sudden and strange that they started apart like guilty children, gazing towards the lifted curtain which divided the apartment with wondering, half-fearful faces. The woman whom Adrea had called her step-mother stood there, pale and bloodless, with her great black eyes flashing, and behind her a tall, dark figure was gazing sternly at them.

Adrea was the first to recover her composure. She was a little further away, and she could see only her step-mother.

"What do you want?" she exclaimed quickly. "I desire to be alone! Why do you stand there?"

There was no answer. Then the momentary silence was broken by a quick, startled cry from Paul, which seemed to cleave the semi-darkness of the room.

"My G.o.d!"

The dark figure had moved forward, and was standing, pale and austere, before them. It was Father Adrian.

There was a moment's intense silence. Then Paul turned swiftly round to where Adrea stood, a little behind him. But the suspicions which had commenced to crowd in upon him vanished before even they had taken to themselves definite shape. Her surprise was as great as his; and, as their eyes met, she shuddered with the memory which his presence had recalled.

"Paul de Vaux, I had no thought of meeting you here," Father Adrian said sternly.

Paul met his gaze haughtily. There was a rebuke, almost a threat, in the priest's tone which angered him. Whatever his presence here might betide, he was in no way responsible for it to Father Adrian.

"Nor I you," he answered. "I imagined that you were staying at the monastery."

"I am staying there."

Madame de Merteuill stepped slowly into the room. She was still trembling, and had all the appearance of a woman sore stricken by some unexpected calamity. Even her voice was faint and broken.

"Father Adrian is a visitor here only--an unexpected one--like yourself."

"Why is he here?" Adrea asked slowly. "Has he come to see us again?

What does he want?"

Father Adrian turned towards her, grave and severe. "I have come to see Madame de Merteuill. I bring her a message from an old man whom, by her absence, she is wronging. You I did not expect to find here,--and thus."

She made no answer. The priest drew a little nearer to her, and his thin, ascetic face seemed suddenly ablaze with scorn and anger.

"Child! your destiny is surely to bring sorrow upon all those who would watch over you, and shape your life aright. Where you have been living, and how, since your flight, I do not know. You have hidden yourself well! You have shown more than the ordinary selfishness of childhood! You have thought nothing of those who may have troubled for you! I do not ask for your confidence. This is enough for me: I find you here in his arms--his of all men in the world! False to your Church; false to your s.e.x; false to your father's memory! Shameless!"

She did not flinch from before him. She looked him in the face, coldly and without fear.

"You are a priest, and you do not understand. Be so good as to remember that I am no longer now in your power or under your authority. You cannot threaten to make me a nun any longer. Remember that I am outside your life now, and outside your religion."

"You can be brought back," he said calmly. "I have powers."

"Powers which I defy. Your religion is a cold, dry farce, and I hate it. You cannot frighten me; you cannot alarm me in the least. You can do ugly things, I know, in the name of your Church; and if you had me back at the convent, or on that awful island, I should be frightened at you. Here, I am not."

Instinctively she glanced toward Paul. Already in her thoughts, he was a.s.suming the protector. He would not suffer harm to come to her.

He was strong and rich and powerful. The horror of days gone by had already grown faint with her; it was little more than memory. It was gone, and could not come again.