Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/227

 Even then he took no notice of her; it did not seem to trouble him that she was hurt, or that the handkerchief she held to her head was covered with blood.

He did not, however, attempt to touch her again, but walked up and down the room talking rapidly:

"Curse of my life that you have been, give me my child, that I may take him to the wronged Fenella and forget that you ever existed. If it had not been for you, what a happy man I might have been with Fenella—my beautiful Fenella."

"And De Mürger?" asked Lucille, whose sting even fright and injury had not wholly killed.

"De Mürger—curse him too—but I forgot, he is dead—Fenella killed him to save her honor, even as I will kill you, if you do not take me where I shall find Ronny."

But Mme. de Vigny had not quite lost her wits, or her capacity for self-defense, though the pain in her head was intense, and the blood was still flowing freely. She managed, without his remarking it, to crawl from the sofa to the door, and then suddenly, before he had time to stop her, she jumped up, opened it, passed rapidly out, closed it, and locked him in.

Having done this, she could do no more, but fell in a dead faint on the mat.

Meantime, "cabined, cribbed, confined," Lord