But in this heart of darkness
All hope lies lost and torn
All fame, like love is fleeting
When there's no hope anymore

Pain and glory, hand in hand
A Sacrifice, the highest price

(Apocalyptica – Hope vol. 2)

Chapter 14

Music had always been a part of him, the instinctive refuge for a lonely soul that had no other means of voicing its deepest desires and most intense sufferings. He both hated it and loved it, with the very egotistic self-loathing he felt towards himself. Music expressed his dreams and his passions and his hopeless yearnings, while betraying his anger and his jealousy and his cruel despair. It soared to the remote pinnacles of transcendent beauty and plumbed the very depths of degradation and corruption. Often it came to him so easily, a welling of golden-threaded melody coursing through his veins as though brought forth by the Heavenly Muses themselves; at other times, like now, it hopelessly eluded him.

Erik was seated at the organ, staring hard at the black and white keys, seeking to find some source of inspiration to lose himself as a means of forgetting what he must inevitably do.

He would have to take her away.

Erik was no fool. He had spent too much of his life being hunted to know that every moment he passed down here increased his danger and the risk of discovery. It was only a matter of time before Christine's disappearance would be traced to the Opera House, and once that happened, he was a dead man. His only hope was to disappear, and take Christine with him. There was no question in his mind whether or not to let her go. He was not going to lose her again. Not now. He had come too far for that.

Yet despite the painful memories that being in this place awakened, the prospect of leaving was harder than he had imagined. In the short time he had passed here, this house, the very soul of the opera, had become a sanctuary again, and now he was bracing himself to go back out into the terrible world again. Distance was the only refuge he knew, his sole defence against the cruel swarms of humanity that threatened to break through his self-imposed exile. Erik both cherished that isolation and loathed it, for however much he appeared to deride and scorn the lives that passed unremarkably above the earth, in truth he envied them with the bitterness of knowing all that was denied him. He walked in the world without being a part of it. The devil had singled him out as his dancing partner and would give him no rest. His gloved fists clenched, stubborn resolve darkening his brow. Well if the world wanted him gone, then it would have to lose Christine as well. A painful stab of some long-suppressed emotion – remorse – flashed through him as he thought of what she must have been mere days before; a young girl-bride, rosy with hope and the promise of marrying the man she loved and living the life she had always dreamed of.

Life doesn't always have happy endings, my love, he thought grimly. Believe I'm telling you the truth in that, if nothing else.

He already knew where he was going to take her. I want to see sun again, Nadir, feel its heat on me. He smiled bitterly. If he had his very own Calvary to walk, a way strewn with pebbles and thorns, and haunted by his own personal demons, where could be more appropriate than the desert? Christ had retreated to the wilderness for solitary prayer and isolation; the harsh-scrubbed land Erik planned to venture to would rather be his Golgotha. He bore wounds great as the Lord himself had to endure – invisible, but inwardly rending him apart with misery.

But Jesus had had a loved one at his side. Even through the piercing agony of a crown of thorns; the hot drops of blood obscuring his vision… he had had a mother who loved him. Erik closed his eyes and thought of Mary, blinded by tears at the sight of her son, weeping inconsolably.

Who would ever weep for him?

Not his own mother, certainly, a cold, aloof figure that was little more than a shadow to him now, and dead more years than he cared to remember. Nor Antoinette Giry, always more associate than friend, and never failing to remind him that their business partnership was often more a hindrance than a help to her. She had been understanding and respectful, accommodating with small favours, but had never shown strong affection towards him. Wisely perhaps, given what he was. A fiend, a monster. An abomination.

Then he thought of Christine, looking up at him without speaking as she kissed the tears from his mouth. The former adoration turned to loathing and disgust. Angel. Father. Fiend. Murderer.

I tried so hard for you, Christine. Even after the mob tore my only home to pieces, I tried to put it right, made a place for you that was a paradise. You could have been happy here. That is all I wanted. I wanted it so much I thought I'd die, but it wasn't enough.

Nothing he did would ever be enough. And he knew why. He had lost his chance at salvation a long time ago.

My God, my God… why have you forsaken me?

Erik's fingers passed over the organ keys, but he had already forgotten he was in an underground lair, miles below the surface of the world on a cold November evening. In his mind, he felt the sun of nearly two thousand years ago beating down upon his back, imagined the searing pain of a spear passing through flesh and the taunts he had endured years ago merging into one crowd of mockery. The shouts and derisive laughter were underpinned by the absence of heartrending sobs he knew would never come. He pictured a face so familiar to him: pale, framed by dark hair, turning away until it blurred and disappeared entirely, leaving him alone.

Always alone.

"Erik?"

The tentative voice startled him, seeming to come from very far away. The mist in his head cleared slightly and his fingers released some of their residual tension. But the sense of loneliness and isolation, fear and despair didn't leave him, but remained rooted in his chest with a deep, throbbing pulse of pain. He realised he was taking heavy, gasping breaths.

He opened his eyes, the world gradually returning to focus. Christine was standing before him, her face filled with emotion. He could feel the warmth emanating from her slender frame. She was looking at him with deep pity, dark eyes wide and earnest.

Erik cleared his throat, attempting to shake off the after-effects of the lingering strains of nightmare and memory. His voice was hoarse. "Did I wake you?"

She shook her head. "I couldn't sleep."

He looked at her a half-blindly; filled with a sudden blaze of pain and yearning. Leathern fingers reached outwards and a terrible jolt shot through her at the thought he might touch her. Christine drew a sharp breath, but forced herself to stand her ground (no half-measures, remember?) bracing herself, but Erik's hand fell almost immediately back to his side. She was aware of a strange feeling of both relief and disappointment.

Although the hour was growing late, he was dressed in debonair style as though he were going to a ball. The tailored linen coat sat well on his broad shoulders, a waistcoat of watered-silk beneath. A hint of a ruffle was gathered at his collars, the white lace forming a dramatic contrast to the dark skin of his throat and jaw. Though Erik had spoken little of his past, Christine had seen enough of society to discern that both his deportment and manner made it evident he was no pauper's son. Yet for all he was dressed like a gentleman, there was still a primal quality about him, a latent ruthlessness that was barely restrained by his civilised look and careful manner. She had glimpsed that loss of control before, the ferocity that could be unleashed when his anger was aroused. It should have frightened her.

And yet…

Christine realised she was staring, and asked quickly, "What were you playing? I haven't heard it before."

"No. It's a piece I composed myself. It tells of Mary, the mother of Christ, enduring the agony of her son's crucifixion, loving and grieving for him, yet helpless to intercede."

Christine's eyes filled with tears. "Erik, it's heart-breaking."

"You're surprised." It wasn't a question.

She flushed slightly. "No, I just – I didn't think you were religious."

"Oh, I believe in God. Only a fool does not. But since He has evidently chosen to abandon me, I refuse to worship Him." His hands drifted over the keys, moving with a lyrical rhythm that entranced the eye and stirred the soul. He closed his eyes as though lost in some heavenly rapture, a joy far greater than anything this Earthly life could bring him. "And yet…" he murmured, "It is beautiful. The thought that such a self-sacrificing love can redeem the world."

Christine's glance fell on the books that were heaped haphazardly on top of the organ. For a man so furiously averse to the Christian faith, Erik had all manner of religious books in his house, ranging from the Holy Bible to Dante and Milton, right through to the philosophies of Swedenborg and the radical opinions of Blake. She curiously picked up a copy of the Arcana Caelestia, wondering if anyone so seemingly fallen as Erik could hope to ever gain spiritual enlightenment. In her mind, she tried to reconcile the ruthless murderer with the man she had glimpsed so moved by the story of the Passion and Resurrection. It seemed he desperately wanted to be worthy of that kind of love, but ever denied it, burned with resentment and instead satisfied himself with bitter loathing. Christine felt a surge of sympathy towards him. Would she ever be able to listen to his sufferings without doing all she could in her power to help him? Outwardly, she was calm; inwardly, she grieved over this despairing man, wishing she could share his wounds or alleviate his pain. She could not give him her love – not when her heart was already given to another – but perhaps she could offer him the next best thing. Divine consolation had been there for her in her darkest hours. Could he not know the same measure of spiritual comfort?

"Have you never thought to go to Church, Erik?" she asked seriously. "There are early services which even you could attend unobserved." A slight hesitation. "You could go to confession."

He looked at her sharply, but there was only thoughtfulness, not anger in his gaze. "The only person who knows the full extent of my sins is you, Christine. I have no need of any other confessor. To earn your forgiveness would be enough. In this life or the next."

The book fell from her hands and landed on the table, stirring up a cloud of dust between them.

"Well it shouldn't be enough," Christine retorted, more sharply than she had intended. She saw Erik's eyes flicker in surprise, but it didn't make her any less annoyed. She knew she was being unreasonably angry, but couldn't bring herself to stop. After everything that had happened between them, after all the exhaustion and terror and heartache, after everything she had sacrificed to be here (oh dear, beloved Raoul!), this new burden of responsibility he had thrust upon her – it was too much! "What about everyone you've hurt? Do you not care about making amends with any of them? Innocent people have died from your actions, Erik! Or does none of that matter so long as I forgive you? And what happens the next time I refuse you or do something to anger you? Who is going to suffer then?"

Erik went as still as a hunting predator. Then with a fluid motion, he rose to his feet, turning to face her with grim deliberation. His low voice was a silken threat, barely concealed rage simmering beneath the surface. "Since you seem to place such a high value on honesty, my dear, I'll be honest. I couldn't care less about anyone else. So what if they suffered? It's nothing compared to what I've suffered. And if you're talking about the Opera House – they had it coming to them. Carlotta's arrogance, the shallow, vapid actors, Monsieurs Firmin and Andre who dared to challenge me – me! And not to mention your little performance you put on to deceive me." She flinched at the reminder. "All you had to do was agree to see me from time to time, sing for me, love me in spirit, if not in body. But no. Had you not been so cruel, so unbelievably foolish as to play a game in which you were over your head, the damage done that night might have been spared. The Opera House wouldn't have burned were it not for your wilful defiance." He watched with forbidding satisfaction the look of dawning horror that spread itself across her features. "Yes, if you're going to be laying blame around, I suggest you allocate yourself a fair portion! Any blood spilled that night is on your hands just as surely as it is on mine. How does that rest with your precious conscience, Christine?"

She was backing away, hands raised to her bloodless face, looking faint and ill. But cruelly he persisted, merciless vengeance emblazoned on his devil-possessed face. If all she saw was a villain, then by God, he would be one, the likes of which she had never imagined! "I wonder how your admirable fiancé feels, knowing the woman he loves is responsible for so many deaths. Has he put from his mind? Does he try and shut it out when he lies beside you at night?"

Christine a tremor course through her body, though it was anger, not fear that made her shudder so. "You're hateful," she said, her voice shaking. "I didn't make you do anything –"

"Perhaps not," he said harshly. "But you're still the reason it happened. You have always been the reason."

She drew herself up, head held high, outrage blazing in her clear features. "How can you – how dare you blame me for what happened? Joseph Buquet, Piangi – you killed them! You killed them! They were people, Erik!" Her breaths came short and fast, her heart was racing, she felt herself close to fainting – "And you feel nothing – you really don't care, do you? And now you're trying to drag me down with you, make me complicit in all the awful things you've done – you're wicked, you're foul – I cannot believe I might have thought any different –"

Erik's eyes flared hotly in the darkness, like obsidian held before a flame. "What are you saying?" he snarled. "That you're changing your mind? Coddling a murderer looking a little less appealing now?" A twisted sneer further distorted his features. "A little late to back out now, my dear. We had an agreement. You chose this, Christine, remember! I never forced you into anything. The decision was in your power."

She let out a strangled, high-pitched laugh. "Power! What power? It's just another illusion, isn't it? I never had any power over you, not really." Her voice rose and she sounded on the verge of tears. "Why did you even ask me? Had I refused, you would have simply drugged me and taken me with you in some opium-induced delirium, or held a knife at my throat and terrified me into compliance. Pretending the decision lay with me was just to lull me into a sense of false security, an opportunity to tighten the silken snare. Admit it – admit that's what you did!"

He was silent, but she could feel the anger simmering within him, hot as brimstone.

"You don't even try to deny it," she said bitterly.

"Why should I deny it?" he responded viciously with real hatred in his eyes. "You've already had me tried and condemned. Feels good, does it? To be so complacent in your moral superiority? And since you are in my power now, let me make things clearer. I could force you to do anything and who would prevent me? I have the power to make you cry. The power to make you scream with pain." His eyes narrowed, black and pitiless. "The power to make you die."

"You wouldn't," said Christine calmly. "You couldn't."

His face was impassive; that, more than anything, frightened her. "No," he agreed quietly. "I couldn't. Even after everything you've done to me, I couldn't. But we both know there are other ways to destroy a person. No one can hurt you like I can. That at least I may call my own."

Christine wrapped her arms around herself, knowing all too well he spoke the truth. Now she loathed her violent, terrible captor. She loathed the subterranean terror of his lair, the endless length of time down here in which she could feel her hopes steadily dying. "Why?" Her voice came out as a cry of accusation. "Why are you doing this to me? I was happy –"

"You didn't look so happy when my carriage found you. I seem to recall you were crying. Or was it merely the ice melting down your cheek that I saw that night? A strange look for a bride on the threshold of bliss. You should thank me for rescuing you from misery."

"Do you expect me to believe that? That you brought me here for my own good?" Christine knew she was sounding half-crazed by now, but everything about this situation bordered on the edge of sanity. Was this what lay in store for her? That she would end up as savage and lonely and mad as him? "That your motives weren't entirely selfish?"

His eyes flashed. "I selfish?"

"Yes! Everything you've done has been selfish. Capturing me, keeping me here, manipulating me into remaining with you, all of it is love of the most selfish kind – love that cares only for itself, serves only its own wants, careless of the suffering of others."

"So you think your love is selfless? That is interesting." Full lips curled into a sneer. "I – and half the Opera House, I imagine – recall the merry dance you led the Vicomte on for weeks on end. How long did it take you to finally confess the true nature of your music master? Or that you had visited me, alone and unchaperoned? He must have been so flattered that you wanted to keep your engagement a secret – as though you had the right to be ashamed of marrying him!"

"You know that wasn't the reason!"

"No. Perhaps not. But doesn't it occur to you that if you were as in love with him as you profess, that you should have married him at once, regardless of what society said? Wouldn't that have been the most definitive way to ensure you would be protected, and to remove yourself from me forever? Instead you chose to act like some coquette; attempting to pacify two men at once, clandestine meetings on the rooftop with one, and flaunting yourself on stage with the other! Too cowardly to end my hopes and sever ties with me entirely, and dragging out the anguish and anticipation of your prospective husband! And you say I have acted selfishly. At least I am honest in what I want, and don't play with the hopes of others. Are you able to say the same?"

Something in Christine's expression seemed to break apart in that instant, and Erik felt the fire within him fade and die. He knew he had succeeded in hurting her deeply. He had always been able to tell when Christine was hurt. Her face was so open, transparent as a fine crystal in which every emotion was clearly visible, not through conscious choice, but rather that it never occurred to her to try and hide what she was feeling. It was an imprudent weakness in the self-seeking and ruthless world of theatre. And equally dangerous elsewhere. When Erik had first seen her, he had instantly seized upon this vulnerability and knew that he could use it to his advantage. But it had not taken long to realise that causing Christine pain was too heart-breaking and terrible to watch. Whenever it happened, any sense of bitter satisfaction he might have felt died immediately on seeing how deeply wounded she was.

A dagger seemed to twist painfully in his heart when she turned away fiercely – as though she couldn't bear to look at him.

"Christine –" he started to say remorsefully, but something in his beautiful voice jarred, like a familiar note being played out of tune.

She shook her head in wild abandon, not wanting to hear what he had to say. "No! Haven't you tortured me enough? I hate this! I hate the fact you know me like you do – that you can hurt me like you do. Whatever bond there is between us – I didn't want it. I never wanted it!"

"No more than I did," he responded in equal parts despair and loathing. "You'll just have to learn to live with it. Just as you expected me to do all those months while you were away living your happy dream, not caring less whether I was alive or dead."

"I did care! You know I cared!"

"Yes," he said, his voice dripping with spite. "Your concern was palpable. Perhaps I missed it when I was lying half-starved in a ditch."

"If you knew," she said in a low, intense voice, "how much I sometimes –"

"Hate me?" Erik finished bitterly, meeting her eyes with a terrible despair.

Christine stopped short, whirling round, dark hair flying across her face. Her ears were ringing; she pressed her hands against her face that burned fevered hot with the blood pounding through her veins. No – she would not be such a person, so filled with anger and loathing. This was not her. She was better than this.

"So it seems you can hate me, after all," he said softly.

"Don't," in muffled tones.

Erik idly examined a shirt cuff under the flickering light, the carelessness of the action belied by the hardness underlying his voice. "It's the worst feeling in the world. Realising you could hate the person you love most. How thin the line is between the two passions."

"I don't love you," she replied dully.

"Then why are you looking so devastated?"

What could she say to that? Because it is impossible for me to be indifferent towards you? That no matter how I try and pull away, I am drawn back, again and again? That I have tried everything in my power to forget the past, but I cannot escape the conviction that fate has led me here? She didn't love him, of that she was sure, but there was… something. He was too intertwined with her past, too deeply embedded in every facet of her existence for her to feel nothing towards him. And yet, however cruel he might be, he was too pitiable to hate as he crouched before her in manner less predatory than imploring, his shadow filling the unbreachable void between them.

The words that came out when she finally spoke were not what she had been intending to say at all, but regardless of everything else, she owed him honesty. "Because I might not be in love with you, but there is still something between us. I cannot lie to myself and deny that, no matter how much I might want to. No matter what I do, I cannot free myself of this influence you seem to have over me. There is a strange likeness, a kind of… profound understanding. I don't know how to explain it, except that I've never felt about anyone the way I feel for you."

He was silent, only a subtle tensing of his posture betrayed the fact that he was listening intently. The candlelight fell on his porcelain mask, flaring it into seeming mobility in a way that it seemed to hold a life and consciousness of its own. Christine looked up into his face, earnestly trying to read his expression, but the darkness gathered in the eyelets of the mask merely deepened the shadows already there. Apprehension, colder than the chill breeze of his subterranean lair, rippled across her skin. Who was she really talking to? Was he an angel? A mortal man? A demon? Or some unholy combination of them all?

"Is that true?" he said slowly. "That you've never felt this way about… anyone?"

She placed her head in her hands realising she had said entirely the wrong thing. "Oh God, please don't take that as a means of false hope, Erik."

"They were your words, Christine, not mine."

And God, did she wish she could take them back. She could not bear to meet the fathomless depths of his dark eyes, the terrifying flame of desire she knew would be burning within. The low, deep tones of his voice already told her far too much. She trembled to think of the unholy thoughts that fermented beneath the cold stillness of white porcelain. No… better not to imagine. She must stop this. For all the conviction of her words, her voice betrayed her, coming out as an unsteady exhalation. "You can't force me to love you, Erik."

"And you can't force me not to."

And there it was. The eternal battle between them. Both were equally resolved, neither refusing to give in, because to admit defeat would mean –

Losing her forever on his side, and on hers… God! Christine shuddered at the thought of what might happen if she eventually became too tired to fight him any longer. To surrender her soul and body to a being that at times seemed more monster than man, to abandon the world of light forever and be inescapably lost to the darkness. And the most frightening thing of all was the idea that it would not be entirely hateful. Don Juan Triumphant had given her a glimpse of what such an existence might entail, and she shied away from that precipice as though recoiling from the sight of her own grave. To repeat such a scene with no audience watching in rapt awe, no bright stage lights to reassure her that it was merely a performance, but to be left alone with him in the dark as he possessed her with his hands, his lips, his body –

No. Pray that such a day would never come. She would offer him her help, her compassion, even her friendship. But never… that. Her cheeks flushed in the dim light of his lair, and she silently hoped that reading thoughts was not one of the mystical abilities that Erik possessed. But then perhaps if he could, he would see that she loved Raoul. That she would always, always be faithful to Raoul, Raoul who was everything that Erik was not…

"Erik, I know this is hard for you to hear. But I am not saying these things to be cruel. I'm telling you this for your own good. You must move on with your life, because while you continue to pursue me, you are only prolonging your own misery." And mine. She bit her lip, looking suddenly distant and pensive. "I don't know… perhaps this was a mistake."

"What?" he said sharply, although he thought he knew. He suddenly felt very cold.

She met his hard gaze miserably. "Agreeing to this."

Erik said nothing, only turned on his heel and began pacing up and down with swift, urgent strides, trying to reign in his turbulent thoughts. His heart thudded with the dreadful anticipation of defeat. After all the brutal things he had said, after all the vile accusations he had thrown her way, was it any wonder that she had decided to turn her back on him forever? He knew that it was all over. He had lost her for good. His chest heaved, a great cry struggling to break forth, only he held it down, because if released, it would be the loudest and most agonising sob that ever pierced the ears of mankind. Burning-eyed and silent, he prepared himself for the worst.

At least, until he mastered himself enough to look at Christine and see her for what she truly was; simply a girl of eighteen, nervous and unsure. Her serious disposition often made him forget how young she was. Most girls her age were preoccupied with dresses and dances, with no cares that went beyond flirtations and beaux. In another life perhaps, Christine's dark eyes would have been filled with laughter instead of tears, her mouth turned up in endless smiles instead of set in its grave, sad curve. He wondered if she resented him for the youth that had been denied her. But it had begun before he ever entered her life, a child raised in poverty, wandering from town to village with never a true home to call her own, the father she adored taken from her too soon. She had always possessed that sweet sadness, the inner world of imagination and the flash of genius that had been like lightning to his soul. Even now, he could see her wavering, torn between duty and the instinct for self-preservation that everyone possessed. He knew what most people would do in her situation. But Christine was not most people. She had accused him of manipulating her feelings, and he knew from experience he would not even need to push her too hard to make her place someone else's needs above her own. To be selfless was in her very nature. Her compassion would be her undoing, but God help him, he couldn't let her go. So he said bluntly, the faintest hint of an accusation in his voice, "I ask you again: are you changing your mind?"

Her head fell forward, and her saw her hands clench against her knees. Her face was hidden under the coils of rich dark hair but he knew it would be white – startlingly white. Not the ostentatious, powdered pallor of Carlotta, nor the roseleaf complexion of Madame Giry's daughter, but a translucent and fragile paleness, delicate as the last snowfall in winter or the transient ripple of moonlight on water.

"You know I'm not," she said quietly.

The surety with which she spoke still managed to surprise him.

"You're not?" he repeated rather blankly. "Even after –?"

She looked up at him, her eyes very bright. "Even after you said some unspeakably cruel things to me just now?"

"Well," he said. "Yes."

Christine sighed and pushed her hair back from her face. She leaned her weight against the side of the organ, sounding tired. "I am beginning to know you, Erik, perhaps better than you know yourself. You think yourself so undeserving of happiness or anything good in your life, that when it comes, you seek to destroy it. You lash out and do everything in your power to remain in the state of misery you think you deserve. And I won't let you. Not this time. No matter how you try to push me away, I will not stop reaching out to you. I made you a promise, Erik. I refuse to break it after just one argument." And I somehow doubt you would just let me go, she added in thought if not in speech.

He sat down on the stool and glanced across at her. Although it was hard to tell in the dim light, he thought her expression might have softened very slightly.

"It never is though, is it?" he said.

"Never is what?"

"It's never just one argument."

"No," she agreed, with a sigh. "It isn't."

"Then how can you bear to be around me?"

He sounded so desolate that her heart could not help but go out to him. How to make him understand? "Erik, you believe that you brought all this darkness and pain into my life, but my life already had those things, long before I ever met you. I felt like I was drowning in it. I was dying of despair. When my father died and Mama Valerius after him, it was as though a part of me had died with them. My voice, my music, my soul… all of it was buried in that cemetery until you came and awoke something inside me once more… made me want to live again. And now I have been given a chance to save you from that same kind of pain, in whatever way I can. I'm not giving up on you."

There was a silence between them, in which Christine realised Erik must keep a clock somewhere down here; she could hear its slow, resonant chimes. It hardly mattered to her. Time, like a lot of things in this place, had lost all meaning. Trying to cling to reality was becoming steadily harder and she wondered dimly if this was what Erik had intended. She was beginning to realise just how easy it was to descend into madness in this labyrinthine underworld. It already felt like years had passed since he had brought her down here. Would she ever see the light of day again? Would she ever see Raoul again?

Erik's voice drew her out of her depressing thoughts.

"Then why can we never seem to get along?"

Christine pressed her hands against the side of her head, easing out the faint lines of tension that had become manifest over the last few hours. "I don't know," she said honestly. "Perhaps it just wasn't meant to be."

"No," he said darkly. "No. I won't believe that."

"What we want isn't always what's best for us. You say that you love me, but it seems to have brought you more grief than joy. As for me... being in your presence is often more than I can endure. It is... dangerous. For us both, I think. Two people, however intense their feelings are, sometimes cause each other nothing but pain."

"But aren't some things worth the pain?"

"Not like this," she said, a note of tragedy in her voice, her large, eloquent eyes. She sighed and looked up at him. "Erik, we tear each other apart. You know it's true."

"Be that as it may…" His expression was set and darkly stubborn. "What does not work here may work elsewhere. The paradise I built for you might have been reduced to a mere ruin, but that does not mean I have given up." He saw her stand up a little straighter, strained and poised with tension, and he continued remorselessly, "I took the liberty of packing some belongings for you. We're leaving. Leaving this cellar, leaving Paris –" He paused, the words echoing with a terrible, resounding clarity. "Leaving France."

"I know," Christine said, her voice weary with hollow resignation. "I know we are."