The time, the hour, the drawing power in her glance, was bringing me to her feet again. Could I not free myself from this Circe who looked so innocent and pure, and yet could pitilessly destroy? Was I again to dance for her amusement? I tried to speak. I meant to say something bitter, but blundered into a hopeless: “I shall never marry.” She smiled now, and even through the mist I could see the pink on her cheek, as she bent forward and laid her hand lightly on my shoulder. “Come, Monsieur de Vibrac. You must get over this.” The hand was still on my shoulder. The touch thrilled through me. I was hardly conscious of what I said, but I slipped back a year, and pleaded madly for her love. Only a few words escaped me; they were enough, however, and she stopped me, white and trembling. “Monsieur!” she said, “you are mad! How dare you!” “How dare I,” I repeated. And then the memory of the words I had overheard in the Queen’s Terrace came back to me, and in unmanly, bitter anger I cast them up at her. I can see it all now: the red light of sunset broadening through the mist, the bare tree trunks burning like copper, the outlines of the château growing more solid and defined, and the figure of Marie before me. I had stepped back a pace as I spoke in my anger, and she had half turned her horse’s head toward me, listening with blazing eyes as I finished my cruel speech. I know now that what she said was to cure me of my madness. I was fool enough to believe then every word she spoke in her hot anger. “So you accuse me of playing with you, monsieur. You refuse to believe that a woman may have strength to save herself from being lost. You cast up in my face what I had buried, what I hoped had passed from my life forever. Well, let it be so--I wanted amusement, and you afforded it to me. You are right--I think no more of you than of an old glove or a worn-out mask.” With that she turned her horse’s head, and, striking him smartly with the whip, galloped off in the direction of St. Loup. CHAPTER XIX THE PRIORY OF THE JACOBINS