"And pray, M. de Konski," demanded M. Isidore, with flaming glance and fierce accent, "what is Madame to you, that you thus arrogantly dare to essay to chase people from her presence?" "Oh, not much," the Anarchist replied bitterly--"not much. Only--only a--connexion--by marriage." At this moment a wild cry from the distressed lady, followed by the sudden and precipitate descent of the Anarchist's beard down the ravine, a similar flight of his broad felt hat and goggles in the same direction, sequent on the uprising from her rocky seat of Ermengarde, who, indeed, had initiated the movements of these things, with the terrified exclamation of "Arthur!" struck M. Isidore dumb with amazement for about the space of seven seconds, at the end of which he observed with a gentle smile, "Pardon, Monsieur, I was mistaken; I had not understood. The connexion appears to be somewhat intimate. I congratulate," and airily raising his hat, he slipped lightly up the path to where it was possible to scale the cliff, up which he sprang, vanishing in the clump of pines on the top. Chapter XXI Connexions by Marriage Ermengarde always maintained afterwards that she had suspected the Anarchist's identity from the first, though this assertion scarcely agreed with the descriptions she had written of that baleful person in letters still extant. She would have been more accurate in saying that the sudden exclamation of "Stop that!" in a perfectly undisguised and familiar voice had first conveyed a suspicion of the awful truth to her mind in a paroxysm of terror and bewilderment, and that not until the Anarchist's sarcastic assertion that she was only a connexion by marriage had the terrified suspicion become a dread certainty, and moved her to tear off his disguise. "Well," said Arthur, standing grim and gaunt before her in his proper person, after the considerate departure of M. Isidore had left the connexions by marriage in possession of the field, dropping his cloak and looking some inches taller in consequence. "Well, Ermengarde?" He was looking straight and stern in her face, with eyes coldly blazing and full of reproof, indignation and condemnation, but no relenting. Ermengarde's spirit rose at the injustice of the implied condemnation; she returned his gaze steadily, unflinchingly, and silently, bracing herself to face the situation and on no account give in. "Well?" she returned coolly, at the end of a long, searching, unblenching gaze. "You little fool!" he said, withdrawing his eyes after a time, with a curious little laugh. "I certainly have been a fool--in more ways than one," she returned calmly. "And how about yourself?"