‘I have let you deceive yourself’ I answered, looking at him with scorn, but with little of the fear with which he had for a while inspired me. ‘Begone, and do your worst.’ ‘You know what you are doing,’ he said. ‘I have that will hang you, M. de Marsac--or worse.’ ‘Go!’ I cried. ‘You have thought of your friends,’ he continued mockingly. ‘Go!’ I said. ‘Of Mademoiselle de la Vire, if by any chance she fall into my hands? It will not be hanging for her. You remember the two Foucauds?’--and he laughed. The vile threat, which I knew he had used to my mother, so worked upon me that I strode forward unable to control myself longer. In another moment I had certainly taken him by the throat and squeezed the life out of his miserable carcase, had not Providence in its goodness intervened to save me. The door, on which he had already laid his hand in terror, opened suddenly. It admitted Simon, who, closing it; behind him, stood looking from one to the other of us in nervous doubt; divided between that respect for the priest which a training at the Sorbonne had instilled into him, and the rage which despair arouses in the weakest. His presence, while it checked me in my purpose, seemed to give Father Antoine courage, for the priest stood his ground, and even turned to me a second time, his face dark with spite and disappointment. ‘Good,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Destroy yourself if you will! I advise you to bar your door, for in an hour the guards will be here to fetch you to the question.’ Simon cried out at the threat, so that I turned and looked at the lad. His knees were shaking, his hair stood on end. The priest saw his terror and his own opportunity. ‘Ay, in an hour,’ he continued slowly, looking at him with cruel eyes. ‘In an hour, lad! You must be fond of pain to court it, and out of humour with life to throw it away. Or stay,’ he continued abruptly, after considering Simon’s narrowly for a moment, and doubtless deducing from it a last hope, ‘I will be merciful. I will give you one more chance.’ ‘And yourself?’ I said with a sneer. ‘As you please,’ he answered, declining to be diverted from the trembling lad, whom his gaze seemed to fascinate. ‘I will give you until half an hour after sunset this evening to reconsider the matter. If you make up your minds to accept my terms, meet me then. I leave to-night for Paris, and I will give you until the last moment. But,’ he continued grimly, ‘if you do not meet me, or, meeting me, remain obstinate--God do so to me, and more also, if you see the sun rise thrice.’ Some impulse, I know not what, seeing that I had no thought of accepting his terms or meeting him, led me to ask briefly, ‘Where?’ ‘On the Parvis of the Cathedral,’ he answered after a moment’s calculation. ‘At the north-east corner, half an hour after sunset. It is a quiet spot.’