“That will be a long time, then,” said Andre-Louis.  M. de Kercadiou has never cultivated friends at court.”

“There is M. de La Tour d’Azyr,” she reminded him, to his astonishment.

“That man!” he cried, and then he laughed.  “But it was chiefly against him that I aroused the resentment of the people of Rennes.  I should have known that all my speech was not reported to you.”

“It was, and that part of it among the rest.”

“Ah!  And yet you are concerned to save me, the man who seeks the life of your future husband at the hands either of the law or of the people?  Or is it, perhaps, that since you have seen his true nature revealed in the murder of poor Philippe, you have changed your views on the subject of becoming Marquise de La Tour d’Azyr?”

“You often show yourself without any faculty of deductive reasoning.”

“Perhaps.  But hardly to the extent of imagining that M. de La Tour d’Azyr will ever lift a finger to do as you suggest.”

“In which, as usual, you are wrong.  He will certainly do so if I ask him.”

“If you ask him?” Sheer horror rang in his voice.

“Why, yes.  You see, I have not yet said that I will be Marquise de La Tour d’Azyr.  I am still considering.  It is a position that has its advantages.  One of them is that it ensures a suitor’s complete obedience.”

“So, so.  I see the crooked logic of your mind.  You might go so far as to say to him:  ’Refuse me this, and I shall refuse to be your marquise.’  You would go so far as that?”

“At need, I might.”

“And do you not see the converse implication?  Do you not see that your hands would then be tied, that you would be wanting in honour if afterwards you refused him?  And do you think that I would consent to anything that could so tie your hands?  Do you think I want to see you damned, Aline?”

Her hand fell away from his arm.

“Oh, you are mad!” she exclaimed, quite out of patience.

“Possibly.  But I like my madness.  There is a thrill in it unknown to such sanity as yours.  By your leave, Aline, I think I will ride on to Gavrillac.”

“Andre, you must not!  It is death to you!” In her alarm she backed her horse, and pulled it across the road to bar his way.

It was almost completely night by now; but from behind the wrack of clouds overhead a crescent moon sailed out to alleviate the darkness.

“Come, now,” she enjoined him.  “Be reasonable.  Do as I bid you.  See, there is a carriage coming up behind you.  Do not let us be found here together thus.”

He made up his mind quickly.  He was not the man to be actuated by false heroics about dying, and he had no fancy whatever for the gallows of M. de Lesdiguieres’ providing.  The immediate task that he had set himself might be accomplished.  He had made heard — and ringingly — the voice that M. de La Tour d’Azyr imagined he had silenced.  But he was very far from having done with life.