arrive in time for vespers, and Jean and Pierre were polishing up the interior of the church, with an eye to their own credit.  It was a very plain, simple building, with but few images in it, and only two or three votive pictures, very ugly, hanging between the low Norman arches of the windows.  A shrine occupied one transept, and before it the offerings of flowers were daily renewed by the unmarried girls of the village.

I sat down upon a bench just within the door, and the transept was not in sight, but I could hear Pierre busy at his task of polishing the oaken floor, by skating over it with brushes fastened to his feet.  Jean was bustling in and out of the sacristy, and about the high altar in the chancel.  There was a faint scent yet of the incense which had been burned at the mass celebrated before the cure’s departure, enough to make the air heavy and to deepen the drowsiness and languor which were stealing over me.  I leaned my head against the wall and closed my eyes, with a pleasant sense of sleep coming softly toward me, when suddenly a hand was laid upon my arm, with a firm, close, silent gripe.

I do not know why terror always strikes me dumb and motionless.  I did not stir or speak, but looked steadily, with a fascinated gaze, into my husband’s face—­a worn, white, emaciated face, with eyes peering cruelly into mine.  It was an awful look; one of dark triumph, of sneering, cunning exultation.  Neither of us spoke.  Pierre I could hear still busy in the transept, and Jean, though he had disappeared into the sacristy, was within call.  Yet I felt hopelessly and helplessly alone under the cruel stare of those eyes.  It seemed as if he and I were the only beings in the whole world, and there was none to help, none to rescue.  In the voiceless depths of my spirit I cried, “O God!”

He sank down on the seat beside me, with an air of exhaustion, yet with a low, fiendish laugh which sounded hideously loud in my ears.  His fingers were still about my arm, but he had to wait to recover from the first shock of his success—­for it had been a shock.  His face was bathed with perspiration, and his breath came and went fitfully.  I thought I could even hear the heavy throbbing of his heart.  He spoke after a time, while my eyes were still fastened upon him, and my ears listening to catch the first words he uttered.

“I’ve found you,” he said, his hand tightening its hold, and at the first sound of his voice the spell which bound me snapped; “I’ve tracked you out at last to this cursed hole.  The game is up, my little lady.  By Heaven! you’ll repent of this.  You are mine, and no man on earth shall come between us.”

“I don’t understand you,” I muttered.  He had spoken in an undertone, and I could not raise my voice above a whisper, so parched and dry my throat was.

“Understand?” he said, with a shrug of his shoulders.  “I know all about Dr. Martin Dobree.  You understand that well enough.  I am here to take charge of you, to carry you home with me as my wife, and neither man nor woman can interfere with me in that.  It will be best for you to come with me quietly.”