At last he lay upon the floor, while around her, Mrs. Merley and the other girl begged and beseeched. But she was as if gone insane. As he lay with eyes closed and a slight groan escaping from his lips at her feet, she suddenly raised her foot and kicked him viciously full in the face. This seemed, then, to make her more vicious, and thereupon she started to jump upon him with her feet, but Mrs. Merley suddenly caught her about the waist and drew her away.

How long he lay there he did not know, but he opened his eyes when from the outside he heard hurried footsteps. He continued to lay as he was, and then somebody pulled the bell vigorously. Mrs. Merley went to it, opened it, and let some one in. He looked up through half closed eyes to see the Reverend standing over him. In that instant he saw his wife dash past him and fall into the other's arms. He heard her saying words of love, while he was aware that the other pacified her with soft words. They took no notice of the man at their feet.

And then he saw them open the door, while the others stood about in awe. While the door was open he caught a glimpse of the street outside—and of Glavis on the sidewalk below.

The next instant the door closed softly behind them, and she went out of his life as a wife forever.

CHAPTER XVI

Table of Contents

A STRANGE DREAM

WHEN the others had gone, Jean Baptiste rolled over again upon the floor, and was conscious that one eye was closed and swollen, filled with blood from a wound inflicted by his wife just below it. He rose to a sitting posture presently, and looked around him. He was in the hall, and when he looked through the open door into the parlor, he saw Mrs. Merley stretched on the settee before him weeping. He staggered to his feet, and went toward her.

She looked up when he approached, and dried her eyes. "You spoiled things, Jean," she accused, and he noted the disappointment in her voice, and also detected a note of impatience.

"Yes, I admit I did, Mrs. Merley, and I'm sorry—for you."

"For me?" she repeated, not understanding his import.

"Yes," he replied wearily. "For you."

"But—but—why—for me?"

"Well," he said, with a sigh, "It had to be as it was. I wanted her. But it would have been disaster in the end on his account, because I could never have brought myself to honor him, and to have lived with her I should have been forced to—at least pretended to do so, and that would have been worse still."

She was thoughtfully silent then for some time, then she regarded him closely, and said as if to herself:

"Well, I fear you are right. Yes, I know you are when I recall how she abused you a while ago. Gracious! I did not know that it was in Orlean."