I knew all in a moment saw all in a flash: that she had fooled me, tricked me, lured me away. Her face was white with scorn, her eyes blazed; her figure, as she confronted me, trembled with anger and infinite contempt.
'You spy!' she cried. 'You hound! You--gentleman! Oh, MON DIEU! if you are one of us--if you are really not of the CANAILLE--we shall pay for this some day! We shall pay a heavy reckoning in the time to come! I did not think,' she continued, and her every syllable was like the lash of a whip, 'that there was anything so vile as you in this world!'
I stammered something--I do not know what. Her words burned into me--into my heart! Had she been a man, I would have struck her dead!
'You thought that you deceived me yesterday,' she continued, lowering her tone, but with no lessening of the passion, the contempt, the indignation, which curled her lip and gave fullness to her voice. 'You plotter! You surface trickster! You thought it an easy task to delude a woman--you find yourself deluded.
God give you shame that you may suffer!' she continued mercilessly. 'You talked of Clon, but Clon beside you is the most spotless, the most honourable of men!'
'Madame,' I said hoarsely--and I know that my face was grey as ashes--'let us understand one another.'
'God forbid!' she cried on the instant. 'I would not soil myself!'
'Fie! Madame,' I said, trembling. But then, you are a woman.
That should cost a man his life!'
She laughed bitterly.
'You say well,' she retorted. 'I am not a man--and if you are one, thank God for it. Neither am I Madame. Madame de Cocheforet has spent this afternoon--thanks to your absence and your imbecility--with her husband. Yes, I hope that hurts you!' she went on, savagely snapping her little white teeth together.
'I hope that stings you; to spy and do vile work, and do it ill, Monsieur Mouchard--Monsieur de Mouchard, I should say--I congratulate you!'
'You are not Madame de Cocheforet?' I cried, stunned, even in the midst of my shame and rage, by this blow.
'No, Monsieur!' she answered grimly. 'I am not! I am not. And permit me to point out--for we do not all lie easily--that I never said I was. You deceived yourself so skilfully that we had no need to trick you.'
'Mademoiselle, then?' I muttered.
'Is Madame!' she cried. 'Yes, and I am Mademoiselle de Cocheforet. And in that character, and in all others, I beg from this moment to close our acquaintance, sir. When we meet again --if we ever do meet, which God forbid!' she went on, her eyes sparkling--'do not presume to speak to me, or I will have you flogged by the grooms. And do not stain our roof by sleeping under it again. You may lie to-night in the inn. It shall not be said that Cocheforet,' she continued proudly, 'returned even treachery with inhospitality; and I will give orders to that end.
But to-morrow begone back to your master, like the whipped cur you are! Spy and coward!'
With those last words she moved away. I would have said something, I could almost have found it in my heart to stop her and make her hear. Nay, I had dreadful thoughts; for I was the stronger, and I might have done with her as I pleased. But she swept by me so fearlessly, as I might pass some loathsome cripple on the road, that I stood turned to stone. Without looking at me, without turning her head to see whether I followed or remained, or what I did, she went steadily down the track until the trees and the shadow and the growing darkness hid her grey figure from me; and I found myself alone.
