ect?"

In order to embarrass Edmee, the president now utilized all the
arguments which could be drawn from Mademoiselle Leblanc's evidence. As
a fact, they were calculated to cause her not a little confusion.
Edmee, who was at first somewhat astonished to find that the law was in
possession of so many details which she believed were unknown to others,
regained her courage and pride, however, when they suggested, in those
brutally chaste terms which are used by the law in such a case, that she
had been a victim of my violence at Roche-Mauprat. Her spirit thoroughly
roused, she proceeded to defend my character and her own honour, and
declared that, considering how I had been brought up, I had behaved
much more honourably than might have been expected. But she still had
to explain all her life from this point onward, the breaking off of her
engagement with M. de la Marche, her frequent quarrels with myself, my
sudden departure for America, her refusal of all offers of marriage.

"All these questions are abominable," she said, rising suddenly, her
physical strength having returned with the exercise of her mental
powers. "You ask me to give an account of my inmost feelings; you would
sound the mysteries of my soul; you put my modesty on the rack; you
would take to yourself rights that belong only to God. I declare to you
that, if my own life were now at stake and not another's, you should not
extract a word more from me. However, to save the life of the meanest of
men I would overcome my repugnance; much more, therefore, will I do for
him who is now at the bar. Know then--since you force me to a confession
which is painful to the pride and reserve of my sex--that everything
which to you seems inexplicable in my conduct, everything which you
attribute to Bernard's persecutions and my own resentment, to his
threats and my terror, finds its justification in one word: I love him!"

On uttering this word, the red blood in her cheeks, and in the ringing
tone of the proudest and most passionate soul that ever existed, Edmee
sat down again and buried her face in her hands. At this moment I was so
transported that I could not help crying out:

"Let them take me to the scaffold now; I am king of all the earth!"

"To the scaffold! You!" said Edmee, rising again. "Let them rather take
me. Is it your fault, poor boy, if for seven years I have hidden from
you the secret of my affections; if I did not wish you to know it until
you were