THE ROAD TO LIBERTY. 
*59 
rejoined him she was very pale, and there was 
something in her frightened eyes which 
touched him strangely. 
“It is Monsieur Arleman/* she faltered. 
“ He is a rentier — a friend of my father’s. 
It is he whom my father wishes me to 
marry.” 
Londe, a tired man of the worlds thirty- 
eight years old, was suddenly conscious of 
a feeling of unexpected anger. 
_ “ Impossible ! ” he exclaimed. “ Why, the 
little beast must be sixty at least.” 
She clung to his arm. He could feel the 
trembling of her fingers through his coat- 
sleeve. 
“ It is of him that I am afraid,” she half 
whispered, half sobbed. “ Oh, I am so afraid S 
Sometimes the thought — drives me mad. I 
cry to myself, I wring my hands. I felt like 
that this morning. That is what drove me 
down to the road. That is why I came when 
your friend asked me. That is why I would 
do anything in the world never to go back — 
never ! 
