one of those
reprobates. You are going to save me, aren't you? Thank God! How I
thank you, O God! Must we jump from the window? Oh, I am not afraid;
come--come!"

I seemed as if awakened from a dream, and, I confess, the awakening was
not a little painful.

"What does this mean?" I asked, as I rose to my feet. "Are you still
jesting with me? Do you not know where you are? Do you think that I am a
child?"

"I know that I am at Roche-Mauprat," she replied, turning pale again,
"and that I shall be outraged and assassinated in a couple of hours, if
meanwhile I do not succeed in inspiring you with some pity. But I shall
succeed," she cried, falling at my feet in her turn; "you are not one of
those men. You are too young to be a monster like them. I could see from
your eyes that you pitied me. You will help me to escape, won't you,
won't you, my dear heart?"

She took my hands and kissed them frenziedly, in the hope of moving me.
I listened and looked at her with a sullen stupidity scarcely calculated
to reassure her. My heart was naturally but little accessible to
feelings of generosity and compassion, and at this moment a passion
stronger than all the rest was keeping down the impulse she had striven
to arouse. I devoured her with my eyes, and made no effort to understand
her words. I only wished to discover whether I was pleasing to her, or
whether she was trying to make use of me to effect her escape.

"I see that you are afraid," I said. "You are wrong to be afraid of
me. I shall certainly not do you any harm. You are too pretty for me to
think of anything but of caressing you."

"Yes; but your uncles will kill me," she cried; "you know they will.
Surely you would not have me killed? Since you love me, save me; I will
love you afterwards."

"Oh, yes; afterwards, afterwards," I answered, laughing with a silly,
unbelieving air; "after you have had me hanged by those gendarmes to
whom I have just given such a drubbing. Come, now; prove that you
love me at once; I will save you afterwards. You see, I can talk about
'afterwards' too."

I pursued her round the room. Though she fled from me, she gave no signs
of anger, and still appealed to me with soft words. In me the poor girl
was husbanding her one hope, and was fearful of losing it. Ah, if I had
only been able to realize what such a woman as she was, and what my own
position meant! But I was unable then. I had but one fixed idea--the
idea which a wolf may have o