Marie, with a woman’s instinct, anticipated the nature of Henri’s two words, and in a moment resolved on the answer she would give him:  if her lover was generous, so would she be; she would never consent to link herself to him at a moment when the union could only be to him a source of additional cares and new sorrow.

Henri soon made his request:  he did not do it, as he would have done in happier times; kneeling at her feet, and looking into her eyes for that love, which he might well know he should find there:  he had not come to talk of the pleasures and endearments of affection, and to ask for her hand as the accomplishment of all his wishes; but he spoke of their marriage as a providential measure, called for by the calamitous necessities of the moment, and in every argument which he used, he appealed to Agatha to support him.

“No, Henri,” said Marie, after she had already answered him with a faint, but what she intended to be a firm denial.  “No, it must not, cannot, ought not be so.  I am, I know, somewhat de trop in this tragedy we are playing.  There are you and Charles, two good knights and true, and each of you has a lady whom it is his duty to protect.  I am a poor forlorn young damsel, and though both of you are so gallant as to offer me a hand to help me over the perilous path we are treading, I know that I am grievously in the way.”

“You are joking now, love,” said Henri, “and I am not only speaking, but thinking, in most true and sober earnest.”

“No, Henri, I am not joking; am I, Agatha?  One need not be joking because one does not use harsh, grim words.  What I say is true.  I must be an additional burden either to you or Charles.  You are already the heaviest laden, for you have your father to care for.  Besides, I have a claim upon Charles; I have for eighteen years been to him an obedient sister.”

“And have you no claim on me, Marie?”

“A slight one, as a cousin; but only in default of Charles.  Don’t look so unhappy,” and she held out her little hand to him as she spoke.  “The day may come when I shall have a still stronger claim upon you; when I have been to you for eighteen years an obedient wife.”

“These are times when stern truths must be spoken,” said Henri.  “The lives of us all must now be in constant jeopardy—­that is, of us who must go out to battle.”

“Ay, and of us women too.  Don’t be afraid of our lacking courage.  Do not be afraid that the truth will frighten us.  Agatha, and Victorine, and I, have schooled ourselves to think of death without flinching.”

“To think without flinching of the death of others, is the difficulty,” said Agatha.  “I fear we have none of us as yet brought ourselves to that.”

“But we must think of the death of others,” said Henri.  “Should de Lescure fall—­”

“May God Almighty in His mercy protect and guard him!” said the sister.

“But should he fall—­and in battle there is none, I will not say so rash, but so forward as him—­should he fall, will it not be a comfort to him to know that his sister has a husband to protect her; that his widow has a brother to whom she can turn.  Should I fall, will it not be better for Agatha that you should be more closely knit together even than you are?”