The girl watched his movements first with surprise, and then with secret terror. The twilight was come, and the cottage was almost dark, and she was alone with him; or, if not alone, yet with no one near who could help her. Yet she met his grin of triumph bravely. "What is this?" she said. "Why do you want that?"
"For the rat," he answered grimly, his eyes on hers.
"Why not use your stool?" she strove to murmur, her heart sinking.
"Not for this rat," he answered. "It might not do, my girl. Oh, I know all about it," he continued. "I have been down to the village, and seen the mayor, and he is coming up to fetch him." He nodded towards the partition, and she knew that her secret was known.
"It is Pierre," she said, trembling violently, and turning first crimson and then white.
"I know it, Jeanne. It was excellent of you! Excellent! It is long since you have done such a day's work."
"My faith, I shall!" he answered, affecting, and perhaps really feeling, wonder at her simplicity. "He is five crowns, girl! You do not understand. He is worth five crowns, and the risk nothing at all."
If he had been angry, or shown anything of the fury of the suspicious husband; if he had been about to do this out of jealousy or revenge, she would have quailed before him, though she had done him no wrong, save the wrong of mercy and pity. But his spirit was too mean for the great passions; he felt only the sordid ones, which to a woman are the most hateful. And instead of quailing, she looked at him with flashing eyes. "I shall warn him," she said.
"It will not help him," he answered, sitting still, and feeling the edge of the hatchet with his fingers.
"It will help him," she retorted. "He shall go. He shall escape before they come."
"Give me the key!" she panted. "Give me the key, I say!" She had risen and was standing before him, her figure drawn to its full height. He rose hastily and retreated behind the table, still retaining the hatchet in his grasp.
"Stand back!" he said, sullenly. "You may awaken him, if you please, my girl. It will not avail him. Do you not understand, fool, that he is worth five crowns? And listen! It is too late now. They are here!"
A blow fell on the door as he spoke, and he stepped towards it. But at that despair moved her, and she threw herself upon him, and for a moment wrestled with him. At last, with an effort he flung her off, and, brandishing his weapon in her face, kept her at bay. "You vixen!" he cried, savagely, retreating to the door, with a pale cheek and his eyes still on her, for he was an arrant coward. "You deserve to go to prison with him, you jade! I will have you in the stocks for this!"