“Oh, save me, save me!  Do save me!”

The action was so natural and unconstrained, the cry of distress so clearly denoted the alarm which only the innocent can feel, that Don Luis was promptly convinced.  A fervent belief in her lightened his heart.  His doubts, his caution, his hesitation, his anguish:  all these vanished before a certainty that dashed upon him like an irresistible wave.  And he cried: 

“No, no, that must not be!  Monsieur le Prefet, there are things that cannot be permitted—­”

He stooped over Florence, whom he was holding so firmly in his arms that nobody could have taken her from him.  Their eyes met.  His face was close to the girl’s.  He quivered with emotion at feeling her throbbing, so weak, so utterly helpless; and he said to her passionately, in a voice too low for any but her to hear: 

“I love you, I love you....  Ah, Florence, if you only knew what I feel:  how I suffer and how happy I am!  Oh, Florence, I love you, I love you—­”

Weber had stood aside, at a sign from the Prefect, who wanted to witness the unexpected conflict between those two mysterious beings, Don Luis Perenna and Florence Levasseur.

Don Luis unloosed his arms and placed the girl in a chair.  Then, putting his two hands on her shoulders, face to face with her, he said: 

“Though you do not understand, Florence, I am beginning to understand a good deal; and I can already almost see my way in the mystery that terrifies you.  Florence, listen to me.  It is not you who are doing all this, is it?  There is somebody else behind you, above you—­somebody who gives you your instructions, isn’t there, while you yourself don’t know where he is leading you?”

“Nobody is instructing me.  What do you mean?  Explain.”

“Yes, you are not alone in your life.  There are many things which you do because you are told to do them and because you think them right and because you do not know their consequences or even that they can have any consequences.  Answer my question:  are you absolutely free?  Are you not yielding to some influence?”

The girl seemed to have come to herself, and her face recovered some of its usual calmness.  Nevertheless, it seemed as if Don Luis’s question made an impression on her.

“No,” she said, “there is no influence—­none at all—­I’m sure of it.”

He insisted, with growing eagerness: 

“No, you are not sure; don’t say that.  Some one is dominating you without your knowing it.  Think for a moment.  You are Cosmo Mornington’s heir, heir to a fortune which you don’t care about, I know, I swear!  Well, if you don’t want that fortune, to whom will it belong?  Answer me.  Is there any one who is interested or believes himself interested in seeing you rich?  The whole question lies in that.  Is your life linked with that of some one else?  Is he a friend of yours?  Are you engaged to him?”

She gave a start of revolt.