Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/140

 their love was still new and strong, before the chill of the broken law had blended agony with joy, a shadow had crossed their path. A man had striven to put them apart, and in that strife Fernand Thoron had yielded up his young life. Murder, Therese called it,—foul, unnatural murder; and under the shadow of that awful crime Philip Rondelet stood to-day. He should be exonerated; he who had cared for Fernand in his last hours should not be suspected of having caused his death while his murderer lived free and unchallenged.

What was that man to her or Fernand that he should have interfered between them? Philip asked.

"Nothing to either of them," she answered hotly; "nothing but an accursed enemy."

"What was his motive in separating them?" he asked.

Her answer was incomprehensible to Philip; it was a very storm of words, spoken rapidly in Spanish,—a language with which he had little familiarity.

"What was the man's name?" Philip asked in a low, grave voice.

Therese, putting her burning lips to his ear, whispered a name which he had heard once before that evening, the name of a man who called himself his friend.