"Who knows?
Who can read the future? And after all, as you have said, 'What does
one life more or less matter?'"
CHAPTER IX
"Ninon, Ninon, que fais-tu de la vie!"
DE MUSSET.
Arithelli awoke next day in her comfortless room, and lay wondering
over the waking nightmare of the past hours. Everything seemed so
different in the morning. There was no thrill of excitement now,
nothing to make her blood run quickly. She only felt flat, dull,
stupid, and disinclined to move. How strange and unlike himself Emile
had been. She had lost her nerve, raved, and threatened to run away,
and he had neither sneered nor abused her. Her hand, still wrapped in
stained linen, had now begun to burn and smart considerably, and was
proof sufficient of the reality of her experience. Her spine and the
soles of her feet tingled as she lived again through the horror of the
descent from the window. She could never endure a repetition of that
ordeal. Next time she would refuse and they could add one more murder
to the list of their crimes.
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