itself, my Valentine; before God you are my wife; I am
yours and you are mine, for ever and ever! Would you let me fly alone,
Valentine? To the pain and toil of exile, to the sharp regrets of a
ruined life, would you, could you, add the torture of separation?"

"Gaston, I implore you--"

"Ah, I knew it," he interrupted, mistaking the sense of her exclamation;
"I knew you would not let me go off alone. I knew your sympathetic heart
would long to share the burden of my miseries. This moment effaces the
wretched suffering I have endured. Let us go! Having our happiness to
defend, having you to protect, I fear nothing; I can brave all, conquer
all. Come, my Valentine, we will escape, or die together! This is the
long-dreamed-of happiness! The glorious future of love and liberty open
before us!"

He had worked himself into a state of delirious excitement. He seized
Valentine around the waist, and tried to draw her toward the gate.

As Gaston's exaltation increased, Valentine became composed and almost
stolid in her forced calmness.

Gently, but with a quiet firmness, she withdrew herself from his
embrace, and said sadly, but resolutely:

"What you wish is impossible, Gaston!"

This cold, inexplicable resistance confounded her lover.

"Impossible? Why, Valentine----"

"You know me well enough, Gaston, to be convinced that sharing the
greatest hardships with you would to me be the height of happiness. But
above the tones of your voice to which I fain would yield, above the
voice of my own heart which urges me to follow the one being upon whom
all its affections are centred, there is another voice--a powerful,
imperious voice--which bids me to stay: the voice of duty."

"What! Would you think of remaining here after the horrible affair of
to-night, after the scandal that will be spread to-morrow?"

"What do you mean? That I am lost, dishonored? Am I any more so to-day
than I was yesterday? Do you think that the jeers and scoffs of
the world could make me suffer more than do the pangs of my guilty
conscience? I have long since passed judgment upon myself, Gaston; and,
although the sound of your voice and the touch of your hand would make
me forget all save the bliss of your love, no sooner were you away than
I would weep tears of shame and remorse."

Gaston listened immovable, stupefied. He seemed to see a new Valentine
standing before him, an entirely different woman from the one whose
tender soul he thought he k