“I love you, Madame; and as you wish to be loved.  I love you devotedly and unto death—­enough to kill myself, or you!”

“That is well,” said the Marquise, softly.

“But,” he continued in a hoarse and constrained tone, “in loving you, in telling you of it, in trying to make you share my love, I violate basely the obligations of honor of which you know, and others of which you know not.  It is a crime, as you have said.  I do not try to extenuate my offence.  I see it, I judge it, and I accept it.  I break the last moral tie that is left me; I leave the ranks of men of honor, and I leave also the ranks of humanity.  I have nothing human left except my love, nothing sacred but you; but my crime elevates itself by its magnitude.  Well, I interpret it thus:  I imagine two beings, equally free and strong, loving and valuing each other beyond all else, having no affection, no loyalty, no devotion, no honor, except toward each other—­but possessing all for each other in a supreme degree.

“I give and consecrate absolutely to you, my person, all that I can be, or may become, on condition of an equal return, still preserving the same social conventionalities, without which we should both be miserable.

“Secretly united, and secretly isolated; though in the midst of the human herd, governing and despising it; uniting our gifts, our faculties, and our powers, our two Parisian royalties—­yours, which can not be greater, and mine, which shall become greater if you love me and living thus, one for the other, until death.  You have dreamed, you told me, of strange and almost sacrilegious love.  Here it is; only before accepting it, reflect well, for I assure you it is a serious thing.  My love for you is boundless.  I love you enough to disdain and trample under foot that which the meanest human being still respects.  I love you enough to find in you alone, in your single esteem, and in your sole tenderness, in the pride and madness of being yours, oblivion and consolation for friendship outraged, faith betrayed, and honor lost.  But, Madame, this is a sentiment which you will do well not to trifle with.  You should thoroughly understand this.  If you desire my love, if you consent to this alliance, opposed to all human laws, but grand and singular also, deign to tell me so, and I shall fall at your feet.  If you do not wish it, if it terrifies you, if you are not prepared for the double obligation it involves, tell me so, and fear not a word of reproach.  Whatever it might cost me—­I would ruin my life, I would leave you forever, and that which passed yesterday should be eternally forgotten.”

He ceased, and remained with his eyes fixed on the young woman with a burning anxiety.  As he went on speaking her air became more grave; she listened to him, her head a little inclined toward him in an attitude of overpowering interest, throwing upon him at intervals a glance full of gloomy fire.  A slight but rapid palpitation of the bosom, a scarcely perceptible quivering of the nostrils, alone betrayed the storm raging within her.