"No," she answered coldly, "it is not in you to be honest. Your words have no ring of truth in my ears, for the note is the same as I heard once upon the Ecrehos. I was a young girl then and I believed; I am a woman now, and I should still disbelieve though all the world were on your side to declare me wrong. I tell you"--her voice rose again, it seemed to catch the note of freedom and strength of the storm without-- "I tell you, I will still live as my heart and conscience prompt me. The course I have set for myself I will follow; the life I entered upon when my child was born I will not leave. No word you have said has made my heart beat faster. You and I can never have anything to say to each other in this life, beyond"--her voice changed, she paused--"beyond one thing--" Going to the bed where the child lay, she drew the curtain softly, and pointing, she said: "There is my child. I have set my life to the one task, to keep him to myself, and yet to win for him the heritage of the dukedom of Bercy. You shall yet pay to him the price of your wrong-doing." She drew back slightly so that he could see the child lying with its rosy face half buried in its pillow, the little hand lying like a flower upon the coverlet. Once more with a passionate exclamation he moved nearer to the child. "No farther!" she said, stepping before him. When she saw the wild impulse in his face to thrust her aside, she added: "It is only the shameless coward that strikes the dead. You had a wife-- Guida d'Avranche, but Guida d'Avranche is dead. There only lives the mother of this child, Guida Landresse de Landresse." She looked at him with scorn, almost with hatred. Had he touched her-- but she would rather pity than loathe! Her words roused all the devilry in him. The face of the child had sent him mad. "By Heaven, I will have the child--I will have the child!" he broke out harshly. "You shall not treat me like a dog. You know well I would have kept you as my wife, but your narrow pride, your unjust anger threw me over. You have wronged me. I tell you you have wronged me, for you held the secret of the child from me all these years." "The whole world knew!" she exclaimed indignantly. "I will break your pride," he said, incensed and unable to command himself. "Mark you, I will break your pride. And I will have my child too!" "Establish to the world your right to him," she answered keenly. "You have the right to acknowledge him, but the possession shall be mine."