'Ah, that's not true!' she cried.

'Go, then, if she's more to you than I am. I'm used to that.'

She moved away from him. Why did he not help her? He was a man; he
loved her, but he was cruel. Ah, the thought warmed her, it was his
love that made him cruel: he needed her; he was lonely. Under her
cloak, she clasped her gloved hands in a helplessness which must be
conquered. What shall I do? she asked the stars. Across the river the
cliff was sombre; it seemed to listen and to disapprove. The stars
were kinder: they twinkled, they laughed, they understood, and the
lights on the bridge glowed steadily with reassurance. She turned back
to Francis Sales. 'You must trust me,' she said firmly. He put his
hands heavily on her shoulders. 'I won't let you go.'

A murmur, inarticulate and delighted, escaped her lips. This was what
she wanted. Very small and willing to be commanded, she leaned against
him. 'What will you do with me?' she whispered, secure in his
strength. She laughed. 'You will have to take me away yourself!'

'You wouldn't come,' he said with unexpected seriousness.

So close to him that the wind could not steal the words, she answered,
'I would do anything for one I loved.'

The memory of her own voice, its tenderness and seduction, startled
her in the solitude of her room. She had not known she could speak
like that. She dropped her face into her hands, and in the rapture of
her own daring and in the recollection of the excitement which had
frozen them into a stillness through which the beating of their hearts