I do not know why terror always strikes me dumb and motionless. I did not stir or speak, but looked steadily, with a fascinated gaze, into my husband's face--a worn, white, emaciated face, with eyes peering cruelly into mine. It was an awful look; one of dark triumph, of sneering, cunning exultation. Neither of us spoke. Pierre I could hear still busy in the transept, and Jean, though he had disappeared into the sacristy, was within call. Yet I felt hopelessly and helplessly alone under the cruel stare of those eyes. It seemed as if he and I were the only beings in the whole world, and there was none to help, none to rescue. In the voiceless depths of my spirit I cried, "O God!" He sank down on the seat beside me, with an air of exhaustion, yet with a low, fiendish laugh which sounded hideously loud in my ears. His fingers were still about my arm, but he had to wait to recover from the first shock of his success--for it had been a shock. His face was bathed with perspiration, and his breath came and went fitfully. I thought I could even hear the heavy throbbing of his heart. He spoke after a time, while my eyes were still fastened upon him, and my ears listening to catch the first words he uttered. "I've found you," he said, his hand tightening its hold, and at the first sound of his voice the spell which bound me snapped; "I've tracked you out at last to this cursed hole. The game is up, my little lady. By Heaven! you'll repent of this. You are mine, and no man on earth shall come between us." "I don't understand you," I muttered. He had spoken in an undertone, and I could not raise my voice above a whisper, so parched and dry my throat was. "Understand?" he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. "I know all about Dr. Martin Dobrée. You understand that well enough. I am here to take charge of you, to carry you home with me as my wife, and neither man nor woman can interfere with me in that. It will be best for you to come with me quietly." "I will not go with you," I answered, in the same hoarse whisper; "I am living here in the presbytery, and you cannot force me away. I will not go." He laughed a little once more, and looked down upon me contemptuously in silence, as if there were no notice to be taken of words so foolish. "Listen to me," I continued. "When I refused to sign away the money my father left me, it was because I said to myself it was wrong to throw away his life's toil and skill upon pursuits like yours. He had worked, and saved, and denied himself for me, not for a man like you. His money should not be flung away at gambling-tables. But now I know he would rather a thousand times you had the money and left me free. Take it then. You shall have it all. We are both poor as it is, but if you will let me be free of you, you may have it all--all that I can part with."