"
"Brigit--_je t'aime, je t'aime_. I am infamous, I am a monster, a father
to be execrated by all honest men and women, but--I love you!"
He laid the violin down in a chair and came to her. "_Et toi?_" he asked
hoarsely.
The moment had come when she _must_ think, she told herself, but her
brain refused to work. The only thing that mattered was that he should
stay. What must she say, truth or lie, that would inspire that
necessity?
She stared at him blankly, and then, before she could speak, he knelt
at her feet and pressed a fold of her dress to his face.
"Victor," she said slowly, trembling so she could hardly stand, "you
will not--leave me?"
And Joyselle caught her up off the floor and held her as if she had been
a baby.
"_Dieu merci_," he cried. "_Dieu merci._"
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
An hour later Brigit Mead came quietly down the now nearly dark stairs
of the old house, smiling faintly to herself.
Joyselle's confession had been complete and circumstantial. He had not
attempted to hide from her one thing, and in the relief of his, as it
seemed, unavoidable avowal, he had hardly given her time to speak. "It
was, I think, the evening you came in the golden gown.
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