‘I hate you,’ she muttered; ‘I hate you, beast! Do you think I should shrink from _your_ blood? Is your blood so dear to me? Should I shrink from your corpse--from your dead face? I have only seen the living one, and that is to me so odious, that I long to see the dead one; it is sure to be more pleasant. Those red inflamed eyes of yours, are they so bewitching that I should not wish to close them for ever? Those lips, which I have never kissed, beast! I promise to kiss them one day. I promise it, remember. They shall be stiff and cold then. That shall be my one and only kiss.’ The hounds barked furiously without, so furiously that they disturbed the house. Adolphe opened his window and called: ‘Be quiet, my children; be good boys, there! Pigeon and Poulet!’ Gustave roared from the window of the corridor: ‘A thousand devils! shall I not murder you to-morrow, if you are not quiet this instant?’ The acacia creaked and crackled. Berthier moved towards the window, he was determined to disarm his wife, if possible. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked, sharply. ‘I am going to look out, and see why the dogs are so furious.’ ‘You cannot see into the yard from this window.’ ‘No, but I can see if anyone is without.’ Next moment--‘Imogène! I believe that there must be some one.’ She lowered her knife, with the fickleness of her disorder; the idea distracted her attention. ‘Where?’ ‘Come and look.’ She stepped towards the window. Instantly, quick as thought, he struck her wrist, and sent the knife flying from her grasp, across the room. Gabrielle in an agony of terror cried, ‘My father! Oh, my father!’ Madame Berthier uttered a moan of pain and rage. Her husband would have grappled with her at once, but that something whizzed in at the open window, and struck him in the eye with such force that he staggered backward, and the blood burst from the lid and streamed over his cheek. Madame Berthier recovered her knife, and threatening him with it, drove him, blinded with pain and blood, out of the room.