past"--she pressed closer to him so that her breath passed across his
eyes, and her voice positively sang--"I mean to have you, for you love
me and are utterly at my mercy."

Vezin heard, and yet did not hear; understood, yet did not understand.
He had passed into a condition of exaltation. The world was beneath his
feet, made of music and flowers, and he was flying somewhere far above
it through the sunshine of pure delight. He was breathless and giddy
with the wonder of her words. They intoxicated him. And, still, the
terror of it all, the dreadful thought of death, pressed ever behind her
sentences. For flames shot through her voice out of black smoke and
licked at his soul.

And they communicated with one another, it seemed to him, by a process
of swift telepathy, for his French could never have compassed all he
said to her. Yet she understood perfectly, and what she said to him was
like the recital of verses long since known. And the mingled pain and
sweetness of it as he listened were almost more than his little soul
could hold.

"Yet I came here wholly by chance--" he heard himself saying.

"No," she cried with passion, "you came here because I called to you. I
have called to you for years, and you came with the whole force of the
past behind you. You had to come, for I own you, and I claim you."

She rose again and moved closer, looking at him with a certain insolence
in the face--the insolence of power.

The sun had set behind the towers of the old cathedral and the darkness