Renee shivered at the cloud thickening over her new light of intrepid defiant life.

’Think it not improbable that I have weighed everything I surrender in quitting France,’ she said.

Remorse wrestled with Beauchamp and flung him at her feet.

Renee remarked on the lateness of the hour.

He promised to conduct her to her hotel immediately.

‘And to-morrow?’ said Renee, simply, but breathlessly.

’To-morrow, let it be Italy!  But first I telegraph to Roland and Tourdestelle.  I can’t run and hide.  The step may be retrieved:  or no, you are right; the step cannot, but the next to it may be stopped—­that was the meaning I had!  I ’ll try.  It ’s cutting my hand off, tearing my heart out; but I will.  O that you were free!  You left your husband at Tourdestelle?’

‘I presume he is there at present:  he was in Paris when I left.’

Beauchamp spoke hoarsely and incoherently in contrast with her composure:  ’You will misunderstand me for a day or two, Renee.  I say if you were free I should have my first love mine for ever.  Don’t fear me:  I have no right even to press your fingers.  He may throw you into my arms.  Now you are the same as if you were in your own home:  and you must accept me for your guide.  By all I hope for in life, I’ll see you through it, and keep the dogs from barking, if I can.  Thousands are ready to give tongue.  And if they can get me in the character of a law-breaker!—­ I hear them.’

’Are you imagining, Nevil, that there is a possibility of my returning to him?’

‘To your place in the world!  You have not had to endure tyranny?’

’I should have had a certain respect for a tyrant, Nevil.  At least I should have had an occupation in mocking him and conspiring against him.  Tyranny!  There would have been some amusement to me in that.’

‘It was neglect.’

’If I could still charge it on neglect, Nevil!  Neglect is very endurable.  He rewards me for nursing him . . . he rewards me with a little persecution:  wives should be flattered by it:  it comes late.’

‘What?’ cried Beauchamp, oppressed and impatient.

Renee sank her voice.

Something in the run of the unaccented French:  ‘Son amour, mon ami’:  drove the significance of the bitterness of the life she had left behind her burningly through him.  This was to have fled from a dragon! was the lover’s thought:  he perceived the motive of her flight:  and it was a vindication of it that appealed to him irresistibly.  The proposal for her return grew hideous:  and this ever multiplying horror and sting of the love of a married woman came on him with a fresh throbbing shock, more venom.