am guilty and contemptible. I, who have two daughters, but I cannot help
it, I cannot help it. I could not have believed, I should never have
thought--but it is stronger than I. Listen, listen: I have never loved
anyone but you; I swear it. And I have loved you for a year past in
secret, in my secret heart. Oh! I have suffered and struggled till I can
do so no more. I love you."

She was weeping, with her hands crossed in front of her face, and her
whole frame was quivering, shaken by the violence of her emotion.

George murmured: "Give me your hand, that I may touch it, that I may
press it."

She slowly withdrew her hand from her face. He saw her cheek quite wet
and a tear ready to fall on her lashes. He had taken her hand and was
pressing it, saying: "Oh, how I should like to drink your tears!"

She said, in a low and broken voice, which resembled a moan: "Do not
take advantage of me; I am lost."

He felt an impulse to smile. How could he take advantage of her in that
place? He placed the hand he held upon his heart, saying: "Do you feel
it beat?" For he had come to the end of his passionate phrases.

For some moments past the regular footsteps of the promenader had been
coming nearer. He had gone the round of the altars, and was now, for the
second time at least, coming down the little aisle on the right. When
Madame Walter heard him close to the pillar which hid her, she snatched
her fingers from George's grasp, and again hid her face. And both
remained motionless, kneeling as though they had been addressing fervent
supplications to heaven together. The stout gentleman passed close to
them, cast an indifferent look upon them, and walked away to the lower
end of the church, still holding his hat behind his back.

Du Roy, who was thinking of obtaining an appointment elsewhere than at
the Church of the Trinity, murmured: "Where shall I see you to-morrow?"

She did not answer. She seemed lifeless--turned into a statue of prayer.
He went on: "To-morrow, will you let me meet you in the Parc Monseau?"

She turned towards him her again uncovered face, a livid face,
contracted by fearful suffering, and in a jerky voice ejaculated: "Leave
me, leave me now; go away, go away, only for five minutes! I suffer too
much beside you. I want to pray, and I cannot. Go away, let me pray
alone for five minutes. I cannot. Let me implore God to pardon me--to
save me. Leave me for five minutes."

Her face was so upset, so full of