As she slowly said the words her eyes were fixed on the door of her bedroom, and there they continued fastened with so dreadful a fixedness that it seemed as if she saw her victim through the wooden panels. Then she gently opened it, passed through and closed it behind her without turning round, for she saw the marquis standing before the fireplace. His dress, without being too choice, had the look of careful arrangement which adds so much to the admiration which a woman feels for her lover. All her self-possession came back to her at the sight of him. Her lips, rigid, although half-open, showed the enamel of her white teeth and formed a smile that was fixed and terrible rather than voluptuous. She walked with slow steps toward the young man and pointed with her finger to the clock. “A man who is worthy of love is worth waiting for,” she said with deceptive gaiety. Then, overcome with the violence of her emotions, she dropped upon the sofa which was near the fireplace. “Dear Marie, you are so charming when you are angry,” said the marquis, sitting down beside her and taking her hand, which she let him take, and entreating a look, which she refused him. “I hope,” he continued, in a tender, caressing voice, “that my wife will not long refuse a glance to her loving husband.” Hearing the words she turned abruptly and looked into his eyes. “What is the meaning of that dreadful look?” he said, laughing. “But your hand is burning! oh, my love, what is it?” “Your love!” she repeated, in a dull, changed voice. “Yes,” he said, throwing himself on his knees beside her and taking her two hands which he covered with kisses. “Yes, my love--I am thine for life.” She pushed him violently away from her and rose. Her features contracted, she laughed as mad people laugh, and then she said to him: “You do not mean one word of all you are saying, base man--baser than the lowest villain.” She sprang to the dagger which was lying beside a flower-vase, and let it sparkle before the eyes of the amazed young marquis. “Bah!” she said, flinging it away from her, “I do not respect you enough to kill you. Your blood is even too vile to be shed by soldiers; I see nothing fit for you but the executioner.” The words were painfully uttered in a low voice, and she moved her feet like a spoilt child, impatiently. The marquis went to her and tried to clasp her. “Don’t touch me!” she cried, recoiling from him with a look of horror. “She is mad!” said the marquis in despair. “Mad, yes!” she repeated, “but not mad enough to be your dupe. What would I not forgive to passion? but to seek to possess me without love, and to write to that woman--” “To whom have I written?” he said, with an astonishment which was certainly not feigned. “To that chaste woman who sought to kill me.” The marquis turned pale with anger and said, grasping the back of a chair until he broke it, “If Madame du Gua has committed some dastardly wrong--”