Under influence of the reading and of the abbe's words, old yearnings had sprung newly into life again which she had deemed dead. Alas! If the affection of Clovis had been as true and staunch as hers, how unclouded a career would have been theirs. Illicit love, he had dared to say--this insidious Pharamond! No; never--never that! She sighed, and with chin on hand, gazed into the fire. It was mere idle prate. Men of a poetic turn run into such extremes. How beautiful she looked in the warm fitful glow in a plain sacque of palest rose, her hair loosely gathered to display to advantage the poise of the graceful head. What a perfect neck and shoulder, and how exquisitely modelled an arm. One hand lay carelessly upon her lap. It was as though he saw that shapely arm for the first time. The blood surging to his brain, the abbe bent down and impressed a burning kiss on it. Goaded by circumstances--an irresistible temptation--he had betrayed himself. Well! Why not now as well as later? On the whole, he was rather glad to have been drawn out of his usual caution. Rising from the cushions to his knees, he pressed another kiss upon her shoulder, and whispered with hot and labouring breath, which seemed to burn the skin--"Gabrielle--my Gabrielle--my own, spite all; it is I who am to teach you the love that maddens and entrances." Bewildered by the suddenness of the act, crimson to the roots of her fair hair, Gabrielle sank panting, speechless, against the carven oak-panel--till, feeling a hand gliding round her waist, she writhed out of the embrace, and, revolted, half-choked, with swimming head, staggered to her feet. "You too!" she faltered faintly, glancing from one brother to the other in fear. "Oh, Pharamond! You must be insane! You did not know what you were doing!" "Did I not? Hush. Why wake that idiot?" whispered the abbe, striving, as he clung, to wreathe again about her arm his trembling sinuous fingers. "I know right well what I have done, and glory in it since I have made you my own. On the first evening that I set eyes on your lustrous beauty, I swore that some day you should be mine. That day is come; you are hemmed round. Others want you, but not so much as I; and when I say _I will_, all must give way to that! I hold you in my hand as I might a fluttering bird just caught. Aha! How the poor heart beats. Be calm; oh, heart of mine! I can be patient and wait until the bird shall cease to struggle, and will like you all the better for the fluttering!"