She stood firmly to her decision.  Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever.  The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . .  But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage.  Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins.

Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed.  The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him.  To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient’s blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . .  Ah, no!  That would be villainy, indeed!  He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate.  He realized that he was powerless to contend with him.  Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance.  The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do.

This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, “What will become of me?” . . .

Marguerite, too—­contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful—­cried out: 

“And I. . . .  What will become of me?” . . .

As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: 

“Listen, Marguerite:  I can read your soul.  You love this man, and you do well.  He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . .  I am a coward.  Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength.  Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . .  But I will atone for past wrongs.  This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it.  Do not say no. . . .”

And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely.  He was going to be a soldier.  Soon she would hear him well spoken of.  His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery.  In this way the impossible situation would settle itself—­either the oblivion of death or glory.

“No, no!” interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone.  “You, no!  One is enough. . . .  How horrible!  You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . .  No, you must live.  I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . .  Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me.”

In this outburst her deep love for him rang true—­her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live.