He struck savagely at her face in the darkness.  She threw herself down, her head pressed against the cushions.  With the strength and fury of a maniac he showered his blows above her, thudding upon the leather or crashing upon the woodwork, heedless of his own splintered hands.

“So I have silenced you,” said he at last.  “I have stopped your words with my kisses before now.  But the world goes on, Francoise, and times change, and women grow false, and men grow stern.”

“You may kill me if you will,” she moaned.

“I will,” he said simply.

Still the carriage flew along, jolting and staggering in the deeply-rutted country roads.  The storm had passed, but the growl of the thunder and the far-off glint of a lightning-flash were to be heard and seen on the other side of the heavens.  The moon shone out with its clear cold light, silvering the broad, hedgeless, poplar-fringed plains, and shining through the window of the carriage upon the crouching figure and her terrible companion.  He leaned back now, his arms folded upon his chest, his eyes gloating upon the abject misery of the woman who had wronged him.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked at last.

“To Portillac, my little wifie.”

“And why there?  What would you do to me?”

“I would silence that little lying tongue forever.  It shall deceive no more men.”

“You would murder me?”

“If you call it that.”

“You have a stone for a heart.”

“My other was given to a woman.”

“Oh, my sins are indeed punished.”

“Rest assured that they will be.”

“Can I do nothing to atone?”

“I will see that you atone.”

“You have a sword by your side, Maurice.  Why do you not kill me, then, if you are so bitter against me?  Why do you not pass it through my heart?”

“Rest assured that I would have done so had I not an excellent reason.”

“Why, then?”

“I will tell you.  At Portillac I have the right of the high justice, the middle, and the low.  I am seigneur there, and can try, condemn, and execute.  It is my lawful privilege.  This pitiful king will not even know how to avenge you, for the right is mine, and he cannot gainsay it without making an enemy of every seigneur in France.”

He opened his mouth again and laughed at his own device, while she, shivering in every limb, turned away from his cruel face and glowing eyes, and buried her face in her hands.  Once more she prayed God to forgive her for her poor sinful life.  So they whirled through the night behind the clattering horses, the husband and the wife, saying nothing, but with hatred and fear raging in their hearts, until a brazier fire shone down upon them from the angle of a keep, and the shadow of the huge pile loomed vaguely up in front of them in the darkness.  It was the Castle of Portillac.