“Can you,” she went on, “take for your wife the daughter of a dishonored man?  No, you cannot.  Forgive me, then, for having for a moment turned away your life from its object; forgive the sorrow which I have caused you; leave me to the misery of my fate; forget me!”

She was suffocating.

“Ah, you have never loved me!” exclaimed Marius.

Raising her hands to heaven,

“Thou hearest him, great God!” she uttered, as if shocked by a blasphemy.

“Would it be easy for you to forget me then?  Were I to be struck by misfortune, would you break our engagement, cease to love me?”

She ventured to take his hands, and, pressing them between hers,

“To cease loving you no longer depends on my will,” she murmured with quivering lips.  “Poor, abandoned of all, disgraced, criminal even, I should love you still and always.”

With a passionate gesture, Marius threw his arm around her waist, and, drawing her to his breast, covered her blonde hair with burning kisses.

“Well, ’tis thus that I love you too!” he exclaimed, “and with all my soul, exclusively, and for life!  What do I care for your parents?  Do I know them?  Your father—­does he exist?  Your name —­it is mine, the spotless name of the Tregars.  You are my wife! mine, mine!”

She was struggling feebly:  an almost invincible stupor was creeping over her.  She felt her reason disturbed, her energy giving way, a film before her eyes, the air failing to her heaving chest.

A great effort of her will restored her to consciousness.  She withdrew gently, and sank upon a chair, less strong against joy than she had been against sorrow.

“Pardon me,” she stammered, “pardon me for having doubted you!”

M. de Tregars was not much less agitated than Mlle. Gilberte:  but he was a man; and the springs of his energy were of a superior temper.  In less than a minute he had fully recovered his self-possession and imposed upon his features their accustomed expression.  Drawing a chair by the side of Mlle. Gilberte,

“Permit me, my friend,” he said, “to remind you that our moments are numbered, and that there are many details which it is urgent that I should know.”

“What details?” she asked, raising her head.

“About your father.”

She looked at him with an air of profound surprise.

“Do you not know more about it than I do?” she replied, “more than my mother, more than any of us?  Did you not, whilst following up the people who robbed your father, strike mine unwittingly?  And ’tis I, wretch that I am, who inspired you to that fatal resolution; and I have not the heart to regret it.”

M. de Tregars had blushed imperceptibly.  “How did you know?” he began.

“Was it not said that you were about to marry Mlle. de Thaller?”

He drew up suddenly.