Trent rose and struck the candle with his clenched fist, and the room was dark.

The bells of St. Sulpice tolled the hour, and she started up, speaking with feverish haste⁠—“I must finish! When you told me you loved me⁠—you⁠—you asked me nothing; but then, even then, it was too late, and that other life which binds me to him, must stand forever between you and me! For there is another whom he has claimed, and is good to. He must not die⁠—they cannot shoot him, for that other’s sake!”

Trent sat motionless, but his thoughts ran on in an interminable whirl.