“I promise you.”

Bettina, as she went on speaking, began to lose a little of her confidence, her voice trembled slightly.  She continued, however, with a gayety that was a little forced: 

“Monsieur le Cure, I do not blame you for what has happened, yet all this is a little your fault.”

“My fault!”

“Ah! do not speak, not even you.  Yes, I repeat it, your fault.  I am certain that you have spoken well of me to Jean, much too well.  Perhaps, without that, he would not have thought—­And at the same time you have spoken very well of him to me.  Not too well—­no, no—­but yet very well!  Then, I had so much confidence in you, that I began to look at him, and examine, him with a little more attention.  I began to compare him with those who, during the last year, had asked my hand.  It seemed to me that he was in every respect superior to them.

“At last, it happened, on a certain day, or rather on a certain evening-three weeks ago, the evening before you left here, Jean—­I discovered that I loved you.  Yes, Jean, I love you!  I entreat you, do not speak; stay where you are; do not come near me.

“Before I came here, I thought I had supplied myself with a good stock of courage, but you see I have no longer my fine composure of a minute ago.  But I have still something to tell you, and the most important of all.  Jean, listen to me well; I do not wish for a reply torn from your emotion; I know that you love me.  If you marry me, I do not wish it to be only for love; I wish it to be also for reason.  During the fortnight before you left here, you took so much pains to avoid me, to escape any conversation, that I have not been able to show myself to you as I am.  Perhaps there are in me certain qualities which you do not suspect.

“Jean, I know what you are, I know to what I should bind myself in marrying you, and I should be for you not only the loving and tender woman, but the courageous and constant wife.  I know your entire life; your godfather has related it to me.  I know why you became a soldier; I know what duties, what sacrifices, the future may demand from you.  Jean, do not suppose that I shall turn you from any of these duties, from any of these sacrifices.  If I could be disappointed with you for anything, it would be, perhaps, for this thought—­oh, you must have had it!—­that I should wish you free, and quite my own, that I should ask you to abandon your career.  Never! never!  Understand well, I shall never ask such a thing of you.

“A young girl whom I know did that when she married, and she did wrong.  I love you, and I wish you to be just what you are.  It is because you live differently from, and better than, those who have before desired me for a wife, that I desire you for a husband.  I should love you less—­perhaps I should not love you at all, though that would be very difficult—­if you were to begin to live as all those live whom I would not have.  When I can follow you, I will follow you; wherever you are will be my duty, wherever you are will be my happiness.  And if the day comes when you can not take me, the day when you must go alone, well!  Jean, on that day, I promise you to be brave, and not take your courage from you.