cience! He taught
poor M. d'Henriel his lesson. You, Nevil, were my teacher. And see how
it hangs: there was mercy for me in not having drawn down my father's
anger on my heart's beloved. He loved you. He pitied us. He reproached
himself. In his last days he was taught to suspect our story: perhaps
from Roland; perhaps I breathed it without speaking. He called heaven's
blessings on you. He spoke of you with tears, clutching my hand. He
made me feel he would have cried out: "If I were leaving her with Nevil
Beauchamp!" and "Beauchamp," I heard 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 suc