There is blood."
She sank down on the low chair, trembling, with her forehead between
her hands. Laurent remained where he stood for a moment, looking stupid.
Then, all at once, with the clutch of a wild beast, he grasped the head
of Therese in his two great hands, and by force brought her lips to the
bite he had received from Camille on his neck. For an instant he kept,
he crushed, this head of a woman against his skin. Therese had given
way, uttering hollow groans. She was choking on the neck of Laurent.
When she had freed herself from his hands, she violently wiped her
mouth, and spat in the fire. She had not said a word.
Laurent, ashamed of his brutality, began walking slowly from the bed
to the window. Suffering alone--the horrible burn--had made him exact a
kiss from Therese, and when her frigid lips met the scorching scar,
he felt the pain more acutely. This kiss obtained by violence had just
crushed him. The shock had been so painful, that for nothing in the
world would he have received another.
He cast his eyes upon the woman with whom he was to live, and who sat
shuddering, doubled up before the fire, turning her back to him; and he
repeated to himself that he no longer loved this woman, and that she no
longer loved him.
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