"Oh, you make it very clear, my wife. Ah! that makes you wince? Yes, you are my wife, and you have just told me that you would rather have died than have married me. Yesterday I kissed your forehead. Is there a stain there? Suppose I were to kiss you now? Suppose I were to claim what is mine? What then, Aline, what then?" A look she had never seen before was in his eyes, as he bent them upon her. His breath came fast, and for a moment her mind was terrified by the realisation that her power to hold, to check him, was gone. This was a new Dangeau—one she had never seen. She had been so sure of him. All her fears had been for herself, for that rebel in her own heart; but she had thought her self-control could give the law to his, and had never for a moment dreamed that his could break down thus, leaving her face to face with—what? Was it the brute? She shrank, waiting. "I am your husband, Aline," he said in a strange voice. "I could compel your kisses. If I bade you come to me now, what then? Does your Church not order wives to obey their husbands?" She looked at him piteously. "Yes, Monsieur." "Yes, Monsieur? Very well, then, since I order it, and the Church tells you to obey me, come here and kiss me, my wife." That drew a shiver from her, but she came slowly and stood before him with such a look of appeal as smote him through all his bitter anger. "You will obey?" She spoke, agonised. "You can compel me. Ah! you have been good to me—I have thought you good—you will not——" He laid his hands heavily upon her shoulders and felt her shrink. Oh death—the pain of it! He thought of her lying in the moonlight, and the confiding innocence of her face. How changed now!—all drawn and terrified. Hébert had seen it so. He spoke his thought roughly. "Is that how you looked at him?" he said, bending over her, and she felt her whole body quiver as he spoke. She half closed her eyes, and looked about to swoon. "Yes, I can compel you," he said again, low and bitterly. "I can compel you, but I ’m not Hébert, Aline, and I shan’t ask you to choose between me and death." He took his hands away and stepped back from her, breathing hard. "I kissed you once, but I shall never kiss you again. I shall never touch you against your will, you need not be afraid. That I have loved you will not harm you,—you can forget it. That you must call yourself Dangeau, instead of Roche, need not matter to you so greatly. I shall not trouble you again, so you need not wish you had chosen my rival, Death. Child, child! don’t look at me like that!" As he spoke Aline sank into a chair, and laying her arms upon the table, she put her head down on them with a sharp, broken cry: "Oh God, what have I done—what have I done?" Dangeau looked at her with a sort of strained pity. Then he laughed again that short, hard laugh, which comes to some men instead of a sob.