But he pushed her gently towards the door, and a moment afterwards he
heard her talking to Duclosse and her mother.

He sat down on the couch and listened for a moment. His veins were still
glowing from the wild moment just passed. Elise would come back--and
then--what? She would be alone with him again in this room, loving him--
fearing him. He remembered that once, when a child, he had seen a
peasant strike his wife, felling her to the ground; and how afterwards
she had clasped him round the neck and kissed him, as he bent over her in
merely vulgar fright lest he had killed her. That scene flashed before
him.

There came an opposing thought. As Madame Chalice had said, either as
prince or barber, he was playing a terrible game. Why shouldn't he get
all he could out of it while it lasted--let the world break over him when
it must? Why should he stand in an orchard of ripe fruit, and refuse to
pick what lay luscious to his hand, what this stupid mealman below would
pick, and eat, and yawn over? There was the point. Wouldn't the girl
rather have him, Valmond, at any price, than the priest-blessed love of
Duclosse and his kind?

The thought possessed, devoured him for a moment. Then suddenly there
again rang in his ears the words which had haunted him all day:

"Holy bread, I take thee;
If I die suddenly,
Serve me as a sacrament."

They passed backwards and forwards in his mind for a little time with no
significance. Then they gave birth to another thought. Suppose he