Viola turned, and saw her, and, terrified by the strange apparition, with features that expressed the deadliest hate and scorn and vengeance, uttered a cry, and snatched the child to her bosom.  The Italian laughed aloud,—­turned, descended, and, gaining the spot where Nicot still conversed with the frightened porter drew him from the house.  When they were in the open street, she halted abruptly, and said, “Avenge me, and name thy price!”

“My price, sweet one! is but permission to love thee.  Thou wilt fly with me to-morrow night; thou wilt possess thyself of the passports and the plan.”

“And they—­”

“Shall, before then, find their asylum in the Conciergerie.  The guillotine shall requite thy wrongs.”

“Do this, and I am satisfied,” said Fillide, firmly.

And they spoke no more till they regained the house.  But when she there, looking up to the dull building, saw the windows of the room which the belief of Glyndon’s love had once made a paradise, the tiger relented at the heart; something of the woman gushed back upon her nature, dark and savage as it was.  She pressed the arm on which she leaned convulsively, and exclaimed, “No, no! not him! denounce her,—­let her perish; but I have slept on his bosom,—­not him!”

“It shall be as thou wilt,” said Nicot, with a devil’s sneer; “but he must be arrested for the moment.  No harm shall happen to him, for no accuser shall appear.  But her,—­thou wilt not relent for her?”

Fillide turned upon him her eyes, and their dark glance was sufficient answer.

CHAPTER 7.VI.

     In poppa quella
     Che guidar gli dovea, fatal Donsella. 
     “Ger.  Lib.” cant. xv. 3.

     (By the prow was the fatal lady ordained to be the guide.)

The Italian did not overrate that craft of simulation proverbial with her country and her sex.  Not a word, not a look, that day revealed to Glyndon the deadly change that had converted devotion into hate.  He himself, indeed, absorbed in his own schemes, and in reflections on his own strange destiny, was no nice observer.  But her manner, milder and more subdued than usual, produced a softening effect upon his meditations towards the evening; and he then began to converse with her on the certain hope of escape, and on the future that would await them in less unhallowed lands.

“And thy fair friend,” said Fillide, with an averted eye and a false smile, “who was to be our companion?—­thou hast resigned her, Nicot tells me, in favour of one in whom he is interested.  Is it so?”

“He told thee this!” returned Glyndon, evasively.  “Well! does the change content thee?”

“Traitor!” muttered Fillide; and she rose suddenly, approached him, parted the long hair from his forehead caressingly, and pressed her lips convulsively on his brow.

“This were too fair a head for the doomsman,” said she, with a slight laugh, and, turning away, appeared occupied in preparations for their departure.