“I love you!” exclaimed Menko again.

“Go!” she cried, crushing him with look and gesture.  “Go!  I order you out of my presence, lackey!  Go!”

All the spirit of the daughters of the puszta, the violent pride of her Hungarian blood, flashed from her eyes; and Menko, fascinated, gazed at her as if turned to stone, as she stood there magnificent in her anger, superb in her contempt.

“Yes, I will go to-day,” he said at last, “but tomorrow night I shall come again, Marsa.  As my dearest treasure, I have preserved the key of that gate I opened once to meet you who were waiting for me in the shadow of the trees.  Have you forgotten that, also?  You say you have forgotten all.”

And as he spoke, she saw again the long alley behind the villa, ending in a small gate which, one evening after the return from Pau, Michel opened, and came, as he said, to meet her waiting for him.  It was true.  Yes, it was true.  Menko did not lie this time!  She had waited for him there, two years before, unhappy girl that she was!  All that hideous love she had believed lay buried in Pau as in a tomb.

“Listen, Marsa,” continued Menko, suddenly recovering, by a strong effort of the will, his coolness, “I must see you once again, have one more opportunity to plead my cause.  The letters you wrote to me, those dear letters which I have covered with my kisses and blistered with my tears, those letters which I have kept despite your prayers and your commands, those letters which have been my only consolation—­I will bring them to you to-morrow night.  Do you understand me?”

Her great eyes fixed, and her lips trembling horribly, Marsa made no reply.

“Do you understand me, Marsa?” he repeated, imploring and threatening at once.

“Yes,” she murmured at last.

She paused a moment; then a broken, feverish laugh burst from her lips, and she continued, with stinging irony: 

“Either my letters or myself!  It is a bargain pure and simple!  Such a proposition has been made once before—­it is historical—­you probably remember it.  In that case, the woman killed herself.  I shall act otherwise, believe me!”

There was in her icy tones a threat, which gave pleasure to Michel Menko.  He vaguely divined a danger.  “You mean?” he asked.

“I mean, you must never again appear before me.  You must go to London, to America; I don’t care where.  You must be dead to the one you have cowardly betrayed.  You must burn or keep those letters, it little matters to me which; but you must still be honorable enough not to use them as a weapon against me.  This interview, which wearies more than it angers me, must be the last.  You must leave me to my sorrows or my joys, without imagining that you could ever have anything in common with a woman who despises you.  You have crossed the threshold of this house for the last time.  Or, if not—­Ah! if not—­I swear to you that I have energy enough and resolution enough to defend myself alone, and alone to punish you!  In your turn, you understand me, I imagine?”