“I was in earnest at the time.  I have discovered, at the last moment, that it would be impossible for me thus to abandon my country, my daughter, my friends.”

“We can take Cesarine with us.”

“Do not insist.”

He was looking at her with a stupid, gloomy gaze.

“Then,” he stammered, “those tears, those prayers, those oaths!”

“I have reflected.”

“It is not possible!  If you spoke the truth, you would not be here.”

“I am here to make you understand that we must give up projects which cannot be realized.  There are some social conventionalities which cannot be torn up.”  As if he scarcely understood what she said, he repeated,

“Social conventionalities!”

And suddenly falling at Mme. de Thaller’s feet, his head thrown back, and his hands clasped together,

“You lie!” he said.  “Confess that you lie, and that it is a final trial which you are imposing upon me.  Or else have you, then, never loved me?  That’s impossible!  I would not believe you if you were to say so.  A woman who does not love a man cannot be to him what you have been to me:  she does not give herself up thus so joyously and so completely.  Have you, then, forgotten every thing?  Is it possible that you do not remember those divine evenings in the Rue de Cirque?—­those nights, the mere thought of which fires my brain, and consumes my blood.”

He was horrible to look at, horrible and ridiculous at the same time.  As he wished to take Mme. de Thaller’s hands, she stepped back, and he followed her, dragging himself on his knees.

“Where could you find,” he continued, “a man to worship you like me, with an ardent, absolute, blind, mad passion?  With what can you reproach me?  Have I not sacrificed to you without a murmur every thing that a man can sacrifice here below,—­fortune, family, honor, —­to supply your extravagance, to anticipate your slightest fancies, to give you gold to scatter by the handful?  Did I not leave my own family struggling with poverty?  I would have snatched bread from my children’s mouths in order to purchase roses to scatter under your footsteps.  And for years did ever a word from me betray the secret of our love?  What have I not endured?  You deceived me.  I knew it, and I said nothing.  Upon a word from you I stepped aside before him whom your caprice made happy for a day.  You told me, ‘Steal!’ and I stole.  You told me, ‘Kill!’ and I tried to kill.”

“Fly.  A man who has twelve hundred thousand francs in gold, bank-notes, and good securities, can always get along.”

“And my wife and children?”

“Maxence is old enough to help his mother.  Gilberte will find a husband:  depend upon it.  Besides, what’s to prevent you from sending them money?”

“They would refuse it.”

“You will always be a fool, my dear!”

To Vincent Favoral’s first stupor and miserable weakness now succeeded a terrible passion.  All the blood had left his face:  his eyes was flashing.