Page:I will repay.djvu/136

Rh him—indeed, indeed it was hate!—for being the cause of this most hideous action of her life: an action to which she had been driven against her will, one of basest ingratitude and treachery, foreign to every sentiment within her heart, cowardly, abject, the unconscious outcome of this strange magnetism which emanated from him and had cast a spell over her, transforming her individuality and will power, and making of her an unconscious and automatic instrument of Fate.

She would not speak of God's finger again: it was Fate—pagan, devilish Fate!—the weird, shrivelled women who sit and spin their interminable thread. They had decreed; and Juliette, unable to fight, blind and broken by the conflict, had succumbed to the Megæras and their relentless wheel.

At length silence and loneliness became unendurable. She called to Pétronelle, and ordered her to pack her boxes.

"We leave for England to-day," she said curtly.

"For England?" gasped the worthy old soul, who was feeling very happy and comfortable in this hospitable house, and was loth to leave it. "So soon?"

"Why, yes; we had talked of it for some time. We cannot remain here always. My cousins De Crécy are there, and my aunt De Coudre-