“You always have been very good to me—­you only.  I am very grateful to you; and I also—­” She stopped, dropped her eyes, and a bright flush suffused her cheeks.  Then she bent her head, smiling like one who has regained courage under difficulty.  “Well, then,” she resumed, “I am ready to devote my life to you.  You will deem me very romantic, but I have wrought out of our united poverty a very charming picture, I believe.  I am sure I should make an excellent wife for the husband I loved.  If you must leave France, as they tell me you must, I will follow you—­I will be your brave and faithful helpmate.  Pardon me, one word more, Monsieur de Camors.  My proposition would be immodest if it concealed any afterthought.  It conceals none.  I am poor.  I have but fifteen hundred francs’ income.  If you are richer than I, consider I have said nothing; for nothing in the world would then induce me to marry you!”

She paused; and with a manner of mingled yearning, candor, and anguish, fixed on him her large eyes full of fire.

There was a solemn pause.  Between these strange natures, both high and noble, a terrible destiny seemed pending at this moment, and both felt it.

At length Camors responded in a grave, calm voice:  “It is impossible, Mademoiselle, that you can appreciate the trial to which you expose me; but I have searched my heart, and I there find nothing worthy of you.  Do me the justice to believe that my decision is based neither upon your fortune nor upon my own:  but I am resolved never to marry.”  She sighed deeply, and rose.  “Adieu, cousin,” she said.

“I beg—­I pray you to remain one moment,” cried the young man, reseating her with gentle force upon the sofa.  He walked half across the room to repress his agitation; then leaning on a table near the young girl, said: 

“Mademoiselle Charlotte, you are unhappy; are you not?”

“A little, perhaps,” she answered.

“I do not mean at this moment, but always?”

“Always!”

“Aunt de la Roche-Jugan treats you harshly?”

“Undoubtedly; she dreads that I may entrap her son.  Good heavens!”

“The little Tonneliers are jealous of you, and Uncle Tonnelier torments you?”

“Basely!” she said; and two tears swam on her eyelashes, then glistened like diamonds on her cheek.

“And what do you believe of the religion of our aunt?”

“What would you have me believe of religion that bestows no virtue—­restrains no vice?”

“Then you are a non-believer?”

“One may believe in God and the Gospel without believing in the religion of our aunt.”

“But she will drive you into a convent.  Why, then, do you not enter one?”

“I love life,” the girl said.

He looked at her silently a moment, then continued “Yes, you love life—­the sunlight, the thoughts, the arts, the luxuries—­everything that is beautiful, like yourself.  Then, Mademoiselle Charlotte, all these are in your hands; why do you not grasp them?”