“Your betrothed!” I cried, in a fresh fit of jealousy more violent than the first.  “You are going to be married?”

“And why not?” she replied, watching me attentively.

I turned pale and clinched my teeth.

“In that case, . . .”  I said, trying to carry her off in my arms.

“In that case,” she answered, giving me a little tap on the cheek, “I see that you are jealous; but his must be a particular jealousy who at ten o’clock yearns for his mistress, only to hand her over at midnight to eight drunken men who will return her to him on the morrow as foul as the mud on the roads.”

“Ah, you are right!” I exclaimed.  “Go, then; go.  I would defend you to the last drop of my blood; but I should be vanquished by numbers, and I should die with the knowledge that you were left to them.  How horrible!  I shudder to think of it.  Come—­you must go.”

“Yes! yes, my angel!” she cried, kissing me passionately on the cheek.

These caresses, the first a woman had given me since my childhood, recalled, I know not how or why, my mother’s last kiss, and, instead of pleasure, caused me profound sadness.  I felt my eyes filling with tears.  Noticing this, she kissed my tears, repeating the while: 

“Save me!  Save me!”

“And your marriage?” I asked.  “Oh! listen.  Swear that you will not marry before I die.  You will not have to wait long; for my uncles administer sound justice and swift, as they say.”

“You are not going to follow me, then?” she asked.

“Follow you?  No; it is as well to be hanged here for helping you to escape as to be hanged yonder for being a bandit.  Here, at least, I avoid a twofold shame:  I shall not be accounted an informer, and shall not be hanged in a public place.”

“I will not leave you here,” she cried, “though I die myself.  Fly with me.  You run no risk, believe me.  Before God, I declare you are safe.  Kill me, if I lie.  But let us start—­quickly.  O God!  I hear them singing.  They are coming this way.  Ah, if you will not defend me, kill me at once!”

She threw herself into my arms.  Love and jealousy were gradually overpowering me.  Indeed, I even thought seriously of killing her; and I kept my hand on my hunting-knife as long as I heard any noise or voices near the hall.  They were exulting in their victory.  I cursed Heaven for not giving it to our foes.  I clasped Edmee to my breast, and we remained motionless in each other’s arms, until a fresh report announced that the fight was beginning again.  Then I pressed her passionately to my heart.

“You remind me,” I said, “of a poor little dove which one day flew into my jacket to escape from a kite, and tried to hide itself in my bosom.”

“And you did not give it up to the kite, did you?” asked Edmee.

“No, by all the devils! not any more than I shall give you up, you, the prettiest of all the birds in the woods, to these vile night-birds that are threatening you.”