him murmuring once:  “take down Froissart”:  he named a chapter.  It was curious:  if he uttered my name Renee, yours, “Nevil,” soon followed.  That was noticed by Roland.  Hope for us, he could not have had; as little as I!  But we were his two:  his children.  I buried him—­I thought he would know our innocence, and now pardon our love.  I read your letters, from my name at the beginning, to yours at the end, and from yours back to mine, and between the lines, for any doubtful spot:  and oh, rash!  But I would not retrace the step for my own sake.  I am certain of your love for me, though . . .’  She paused:  ‘Yes, I am certain of it.  And if I am a burden to you?’

’About as much as the air, which I can’t do without since I began to breathe it,’ said Beauchamp, more clear-mindedly now that he supposed he was addressing a mind, and with a peril to himself that escaped his vigilance.  There was a secret intoxication for him already in the half-certainty that the step could not be retraced.  The idea that he might reason with her, made her seductive to the heart and head of him.

‘I am passably rich, Nevil,’ she said.  ’I do not care for money, except that it gives wings.  Roland inherits the chateau in Touraine.  I have one in Burgundy, and rentes and shares, my notary informs me.’

‘I have money,’ said he.  His heart began beating violently.  He lost sight of his intention of reasoning.  ‘Good God! if you were free!’

She faltered:  ‘At Tourdestelle . . .’

‘Yes, and I am unchanged,’ Beauchamp cried out.  ’Your life there was horrible, and mine’s intolerable.’  He stretched his arms cramped like the yawning of a wretch in fetters.  That which he would and would not became so intervolved that he deemed it reasonable to instance their common misery as a ground for their union against the world.  And what has that world done for us, that a joy so immeasurable should be rejected on its behalf?  And what have we succeeded in doing, that the childish effort to move it should be continued at such a cost?

For years, down to one year back, and less—­yesterday, it could be said—­ all human blessedness appeared to him in the person of Renee, given him under any condition whatsoever.  She was not less adorable now.  In her decision, and a courage that he especially prized in women, she was a sweeter to him than when he was with her in France:  too sweet to be looked at and refused.

‘But we must live in England,’ he cried abruptly out of his inner mind.

‘Oh! not England, Italy, Italy!’ Renee exclaimed:  ’Italy, or Greece:  anywhere where we have sunlight.  Mountains and valleys are my dream.  Promise it, Nevil.  I will obey you; but this is my wish.  Take me through Venice, that I may look at myself and wonder.  We can live at sea, in a yacht; anywhere with you but in England.  This country frowns on me; I can hardly fetch my breath here, I am suffocated.