As soon as I learnt that we were really being attacked, I had taken my weapons and done what I called my duty, after leaving Edmee locked in the room.

After three assaults had been repulsed there was a long lull, and I returned to my captive.  The fear lest my uncles should get possession of Edmee made me mad.  I kept on telling her I loved her and wanted her for myself, and seeing what an animal it was she had to deal with, my cousin made up her mind accordingly.  She threw her arms round me, and let me kiss her.  “Do you love me?” she asked.

From this moment the victory was hers.  The wolf in me was conquered, and the man rose in its place.

“Yes, I love you!  Yes, I love you!”

“Well, then,” she said distractedly, “let us love each other and escape together.”

“Yes; let us escape,” I answered.  “I loathe this house, and I loathe my uncles.  I have long wanted to escape.  And yet I shall only be hanged, you know.”  For I knew I had as much to fear from the besiegers as from the besieged.

“They won’t hang you,” she rejoined with a laugh; “my betrothed is a lieutenant-general.”

“Your betrothed!” I burst out in a fit of jealousy.  “You are going to be married?”

“And why not?”

“Swear that you will not marry before I die.  Swear that you will be mine sooner than this lieutenant-general’s,” I cried.

Edmee swore as I asked her, and she made me swear in return that her promise should be a secret.  Then I clasped her in my arms, and we remained motionless until fresh shots announced that the fight had begun again.  Every moment of delay was dangerous now.  I seized a torch, and lifting a trap door made her descend with me to the cellar.  Thence we passed into a subterranean passage, and finally hurried forth into the open, holding each other’s hands as a sign of mutual trust.  I found a horse that had belonged to my grandfather in the forest, and this animal carried us some miles from Roche-Mauprat, before it stumbled and threw us.  Edmee was unhurt but my ankle was badly sprained.  Fortunately we were near a lonely building called Gayeau Tower, the dwelling place of a remarkable man called Patience, a peasant who was both a hermit and a philosopher, and who, like Edmee, was filled with the new social gospel of Rousseau.  Between these two a warm friendship existed.

“The lamb in the company of the wolf,” cried Patience when he saw us.

“My friend,” replied Edmee, “welcome him as you welcome me.  I was a prisoner at Roche-Mauprat, and it was he who rescued me.”

At that Patience took me by the arm and led me in.  A few days later I was carried to the chateau of the chevalier, M. Hubert de Mauprat, at Sainte-Severe, and there I learnt that Roche-Mauprat had been taken, that five of my uncles were dead, and that two, John and Antony, had disappeared.

“Bernard,” added the chevalier, “I owe to you the life I hold dearest in the world.  All my own life shall be devoted to giving you proofs of my gratitude and esteem.  Bernard, we are both of us victims of a vicious family.  The wrong that has been done you shall be repaired.  They have deprived you of education, but your soul has remained pure.  Bernard, you will restore the honour of your family, promise me this.”