It seemed to her that some one, some mysterious being, black in the sunset brilliance, had passed by smiting her heart with a hammer. And her heart awaked from the evil stupor of the long oppression. Now she could arise, shake herself, walk; walk, breathe, cry aloud; live, and make a supreme effort to rid herself of the shadow, of the weight of the incubus--or else she must fall again under that weight, under that black shadow, and must die. From day to day Regina had expected this hour of conflict, yet from day to day she had put it from her like a bitter cup. Now it had come, and she felt a mysterious fear. Again she would have wished to put it off; but a strange impulse, what seemed an instinct of self-preservation superior to her will, clutched her and forced her to speak. She remembered none of the words prepared for weeks and months; only Antonio's sentence about Marianna gave her a thread to which she clung desperately, as to a thread which would guide her out of the dark labyrinth. She had turned and turned in the maze of the evil dream, but she had come back to the precise point where she had stood on the day of the catastrophe. "No," she began, in a toneless voice; "you cannot guess how malignant Gabrie is. Oh, much more than Marianna! Marianna sees, and sometimes at least says nothing. But Gabrie----If you can bear it, I will tell you something, Antonio." He turned round and looked at her. She looked at him. It seemed as if for that moment they understood each other without more words. However, she went on. "You will be patient?" He looked straight before him, indifferent, too indifferent. "Go on." "Gabrie says you are Madame Makuline's lover." He reddened. Anger deformed his face. He dropped Regina's hand and flung it from him, opening his lips with gestures of astonishment and wrath. "She said that to you?" he cried. His voice resounded in the silence of the road. "She told me, yes." He stood still. Regina stood still. Her heart beat. His hands, hanging down, groped as if trying to lay hold of something. The gesture is customary with actors at the dramatic moments of their part. Regina feared that Antonio acted his part too well. Then she thought, forcing herself to be just-- "If he is innocent, it's natural he should be upset." "And you, you----" he burst out, "did not strike her? You actually thought of bringing her with us to-day!" "Antonio," exclaimed Regina, looking at him with feigned surprise, "you promised to be patient!" "But it's abominable!" he said, lifting his hands. "How do you suppose I can be patient? If you are joking let me tell you it's a hideous joke. If what you tell me is serious, I am astounded at your calm." His face paled rapidly as it had flushed, but it paled too much; it became almost grey.