“One,” she said, “that hath pursued thee long months with bleeding feet and a broken heart. One, that I came upon to-day, lost and wandering in the cold streets, and that I, being no man, took home with me and comforted.” “What other?” he murmured again, but with a dreadful intuition of the truth. “Nay,” she said, “love hath not done with thee. Only thou must run with the hare instead of hunting with the dogs.” “What other?” he repeated dully. “A saint, monsieur; yet one that, for all her chastity, hath caught the infection of these liberal times.” She gazed into his face piercingly. “I swear I never guessed,” she murmured. “I swear I hold her the dearer and the purer that she is revealed human in the end. The handmaid of God! Ah! but so to testify to His choice by this long discipline of her heart! And now, directing her in this pursuit of thee, He ratifies the new licence; and she shall not be less the saint because her passion is sanctified of a human love.” “It is a vile blasphemy,” said the man. “You speak of Nicette Legrand.” She clapped her hands. “But, yes,” she cried in shrill triumph; “I speak of Nicette Legrand, whose heart, it seems, thou stolest--one of the common things that thou, and such as thou, would use to the profit of an idle hour, whilst thy honour was pledged elsewhere. But who enlists Love in his service shall engage a parasite to devour him.” “Nicette!” he only murmured once more. “Take thy fill of her name,” said the girl scornfully. “I tell thee, Love presumes upon his hire. Didst thou think he had discarded thee? He shall prove a tyrant whom thou thought’st to make thy servant.” He fell, suddenly, quite calm and cold. “Well,” he said, “so Nicette is in Paris?” She answered-- “In Paris--a month’s long journey, by rock and briar, for those poor, patient feet. Oh,” she cried, “that I should ever have unwittingly wronged her by seeking to convert this block--this stone--to my own passionate uses!” “And so she hath explained it to you?” he said, in the same even tone. “Well, she is a liar, from first to last; and at least it is fitting that a murderess should give sanctuary to a murderess.” She stared at him, breathing softly. “Am I to kill _you_?” she said. He laughed without merriment. “Listen to me, Théroigne. I never desired this woman, or gave her one pretext for asserting that I did. If she says otherwise, she lies. If she tells you that she left Méricourt to follow me, she lies. She has fled because she has been discovered in a deception as vile, a crime as inhuman, as any that have blackened the world since the race began.” She still stared at him, her lips moving, but she did not speak.