“What is it, then?  Do I not offer you fortune and happiness?  Tell me what it is then.”

She drew herself up, and said proudly, “Up to this time, my conscience has enabled me to hold my own against all the scandalous gossip that has been flying about, but now it says, ’Halt, Diana de Laurebourg!  You have gone far enough.’  My burden is heavy, my heart is breaking, but I must draw back now.  No, Norbert; I cannot fly with you.”

She paused for a moment, as though unable to proceed, and then went on with more firmness, “Were I alone and solitary in the world, I might act differently; but I have a family, whose honor I must guard as I would my own.”

“A family indeed, which sacrifices you to your elder brother.”

“It may be so, and therefore my task is all the greater.  Who ever head of virtue as something easy to practise?”

Norbert never remembered what an example of rebellion she had set.

“My heart and my conscience dictate the same course to me.  The result must ever be fatal, when a young girl sets at defiance the rules and laws of society; and you would never care to look with respect on one upon whom others gazed with the eye of contempt.”

“What sort of an opinion have you of me, then?”

“I believe you to be a man, Norbert.  Let us suppose that I fly with you, and that the next day I should hear that my father has been killed in a duel fought on my account; what then?  Believe me, that when I tell you to fly by yourself, I give you the best advice in my power.  You will forget me, I know; but what else can I hope for?”

“Forget you!” said Norbert angrily.  “Can you forget me?”

His face was so close to hers that she felt the hot breath upon her cheek.

“Yes,” stammered she, with a violent effort, “I can.”

Norbert drew a pace back, that he might read her meaning more fully in her eyes.

“And if I go away,” asked he, “what will become of you?”

A sob burst from the young girl’s breast, and her strength seemed to desert her limbs.

“I,” answered she, in the calm, resigned voice of a Christian virgin about to be cast to the lions that roared in the arena, “I have my destiny.  To-day is the last time that we shall ever meet.  I shall return to my home, where everything will shortly be known.  I shall find my father angry and menacing.  He will place me in a carriage, and the next day I shall find myself within the walls of the hated convent.”

“But that life would be one long, slow agony to you.  You have told me this before.”

“Yes,” answered she, “it would be an agony, but it would also be an expiation; and when the burden grows too heavy, I have this.”