She lighted the candles herself, and took one to the table to look
over what he was writing.

"/My dear Sabine--/"

"'My dear'?--can you really say that your wife is still dear to you?"
she asked, looking at him with a cold eye that froze the very marrow
of his bones. "Go,--you had better go and dine with her."

"/I dine at a restaurant with some friends./"

"A lie. Oh, fy! you are not worthy to be loved either by her or by me.
Men are all cowards in their treatment of women. Go, monsieur, go and
dine with your dear Sabine."

Calyste flung himself back in his arm-chair and became as pale as
death. Bretons possess a courage of nature which makes them obstinate
under difficulties. Presently the young baron sat up, put his elbow on
the table, his chin in his hand, and looked at the implacable Beatrix
with a flashing eye. He was so superb that a Northern or a Southern
woman would have fallen at his feet saying, "Take me!" But Beatrix,
born on the borders of Normandy and Brittany, belonged to the race of
Casterans; desertion had developed in her the ferocity of the Frank,
the spitefulness of the Norman; she wanted some terrible notoriety as
a vengeance, and she yielded to no weakness.

"Dictate what I ought to write," said the luckless man. "But, in that
case--"