"

"Hear me, Cephyse," resumed Jacques, with bitter agony. "It is now that
I first know how mach I love you. My heart is pressed as in a vise at
the thought of leaving you and I shudder to thinly what is to become of
you." Then--drawing his hand across his forehead, Jacques added: "You
see we have been ruined by saying--'To-morrow will never come!'--for to
morrow has come. When I am no longer with you, and you have spent the
last penny of the money gained by the sale of your clothes--unfit for
work as you have become--what will you do next? Must I tell you what you
will do!--you will forget me and--" Then, as if he recoiled from his own
thoughts, Jacques exclaimed, with a burst of rage and despair--"Great
Heaven! if that were to happen, I should dash my brains out against the
stones!"

Cephyse guessed the half-told meaning of Jacques, and throwing her arms
around his neck, she said to him: "I take another lover?--never! I am
like you, for I now first know how much I love you."

"But, my poor Cephyse--how will you live?"

"Well, I shall take courage. I will go back and dwell, with my sister,
as in old times; we will work together, and so earn our bread. I'll
never go out, except to visit you. In a few days your creditor will
reflect, that, as you can't pay him ten thousand francs, he may as well
set you free. By that time I shall have once more acquired the habit of
working. You shall see, you shall see!--and you also will again acquire
this habit. We shall live poor, but content. After all, we have had
plenty of amusement for six month, while so many others have never known
pleasure all their lives. And believe me, my dear Jacques, when I say
to you--I shall profit by this lesson. If you love me, do not feel the
least uneasiness; I tell you, that I would rather die a hundred times,
than have another lover."

"Kiss me," said Jacques, with eyes full of tears. "I believe you--yes,
I believe you--and you give me back my courage, both for now and
hereafter. You are right; we must try and get to work again, or else
nothing remains but Father Arsene's bushel of charcoal; for, my girl,"
added Jacques, in a low and trembling voice, "I have been like a drunken
man these six months, and now I am getting sober, and see whither we are
going. Our means once exhausted, I might perhaps have become a robber,
and you--"

"Oh, Jacques! don't talk so--it is frightful," interrupted Cephyse; "I
swear to you that I will return to my si