“What!  Would you think of remaining here after the horrible affair of to-night, after the scandal that will be spread to-morrow?”

“What do you mean?  That I am lost, dishonored?  Am I any more so to-day than I was yesterday?  Do you think that the jeers and scoffs of the world could make me suffer more than do the pangs of my guilty conscience?  I have long since passed judgment upon myself, Gaston; and, although the sound of your voice and the touch of your hand would make me forget all save the bliss of your love, no sooner were you away than I would weep tears of shame and remorse.”

Gaston listened immovable, stupefied.  He seemed to see a new Valentine standing before him, an entirely different woman from the one whose tender soul he thought he knew so well.

“Your mother, what will she say?” he asked.

“It is my duty to her that keeps me here.  Do you wish me to prove an unnatural daughter, and desert a poor, lonely, friendless old woman, who has nothing but me to cling to?  Could I abandon her to follow a lover?”

“But our enemies will inform her of everything, Valentine, and think how she will make you suffer!”

“No matter.  The dictates of conscience must be obeyed.  Ah, why can I not, at the price of my life, spare her the agony of hearing that her only daughter, her Valentine, has disgraced her name?  She may be hard, cruel, pitiless toward me; but have I not deserved it?  Oh, my only friend, we have been revelling in a dream too beautiful to last!  I have long dreaded this awakening.  Like two weak, credulous fools we imagined that happiness could exist beyond the pale of duty.  Sooner or later stolen joys must be dearly paid for.  After the sweet comes the bitter; we must bow our heads, and drink the cup to the dregs.”

This cold reasoning, this sad resignation, was more than the fiery nature of Gaston could bear.

“You shall not talk thus!” he cried.  “Can you not feel that the bare idea of your suffering humiliation drives me mad?”

“Alas!  I see nothing but disgrace, the most fearful disgrace, staring me in the face.”

“What do you mean, Valentine?”

“I have not told you, Gaston, I am——­”

Here she stopped, hesitated, and then added: 

“Nothing!  I am a fool.”

Had Gaston been less excited, he would have suspected some new misfortune beneath this reticence of Valentine; but his mind was too full of one idea—­that of possessing her.

“All hope is not lost,” he continued.  “My father is kind-hearted, and was touched by my love and despair.  I am sure that my letters, added to the intercession of my brother Louis, will induce him to ask Mme. de la Verberie for your hand.”

This proposition seemed to frighten Valentine.

“Heaven forbid that the marquis should take this rash step!”

“Why, Valentine?”

“Because my mother would reject his offer; because, I must confess it now, she has sworn I shall marry none but a rich man; and your father is not rich, Gaston, so you will have very little.”