"Eh, bien, madame," he cried, suddenly wheeling round and standing in front of her, his thin lips curled into a snarl. "The result of your insensate acts be on your head. Mark that the fault is yours if, after all my efforts to annihilate the past, you force me to be your enemy. Here below we must be judged by acts, madame, not by sugared words that mean nothing. Why compel me to war when I would fain bring peace? If you execute so iniquitous an instrument as you propose, you will have made thereby three implacable enemies; and a woman without friends should think twice before making one. Your husband never wronged you with that governess, you foolish girl; you were racked by your own silly phantom jealousy. If you must have revenge, wreak it upon me, whose only fault was loving you too much. No need to start. Cards down! Why should I deny that I loved you? The more fool I! But as your love for him has been crushed out, so, too, has mine for you, as to your sorrow you will learn." His envenomed words snapped out like the clicks of a matchlock, and the old dismay gathered round the heart of the marquise with a chill of exceeding desolation. She had been taken in. His seeming recovery of his better self was but a sham, his fawning courtesy a grimace, his suave kindliness a mockery, his effusive benevolence a snare. To one so simply truthful as Gabrielle, such calculating duplicity was diabolical. He had dropped his vizard and shown his real face, and as she shudderingly surveyed it, she had gauged something of the malice of which this foe was capable. Returned to Lorge, was peace to be denied? Since cajolery and threats had not availed to win her, did he think to bend her to his will by force? Though he declared he hated her, there was that on his white vindictive face that she had learned to read too well. She would go straight to her husband, tell him the whole truth, and claim protection. But what then of the disposal of her property, which she felt it her duty to make? Ought she, taking a high line, to threaten to withdraw the allowance, act for herself as the good father had done on her behalf? But, ah me, how changed things were since then, so brief a while ago! Her husband already hated her--there was a ring of sincerity in the voice of Pharamond as he informed her that it was so, and she knew well, in case of a tussle, into which scale the latter would throw all his weight. Doubtless, Clovis wished her dead; alone at Lorge, might even--yet no, much as he might wish to be quit of her, his courage would surely fail when the pinch came.