"Stop, mademoiselle!" he cried wildly. "I was mad--mad with my love for you. I understand too well now! I understood that I had made a terrible mistake, _misérable_ that I am, when this girl, when it was too late, came out of that dressing room there, when--when Laparde had fallen. I am a fool, a blind, senseless fool; but--but, mademoiselle, it was my love--you will forgive, you--"
"Besides a fool, you are a coward!" she said pitilessly. "But you do not understand everything yet--and you shall have no further chance to warp and twist things to suit your perverted fancy, Monsieur Valmain. I think I could quite easily tell you where this girl, in whom you imagine you have discovered Jean's model, obtained those clothes--and if she will not tell you, I will. And then you will leave here, and you will take pains, Monsieur Valmain, that we do not meet again. Do you hear that? I tell you again that I hate you, that I loathe you, and that if I were a man I would know how to make you answer for it!" She stepped quickly to Marie-Louise's side. "Look up at me!" she ordered curtly. "This man says that hat and cloak are mine, and it is true--they were mine. Tell him where you got them!"
Marie-Louise did not move, except that she clasped her hands together a little more tightly in her lap. She could not tell; for suddenly she thought of Father Anton, and a sense of loyalty to Father Anton insisted that she should not tell. If mademoiselle knew, as mademoiselle said, that was another matter, and she could not change that now; but to tell it herself--no, she could not do that, for that was to admit that the good curé was in the secret of her presence in Paris, and after that it would be known almost surely that he had arranged with Hector and Madame Mi-mi for her to come there to the _atelier_.
"Are you stupid enough to imagine that you are protecting Father Anton? I promise you I shall have a word with that gentleman in the morning! And since you could have got that hat and cloak nowhere else, tell Monsieur Valmain that Father Anton gave them to you, and have done with it!"
Marie-Louise looked up. Mademoiselle had said it, and--and Father Anton certainly would not deny it.
"Yes," she said under her breath. "Father Anton gave them to me."