common a thing to find real devotion, a being who only asks
to serve you, to be useful to you, to live in your shadow. And you will
understand that to have the right of giving you my life, to bear your
name, to be your wife, to follow you, I felt very vividly in your
presence at the moment I was about to lose you. You will pardon my lack
of modesty for the first, for the last time. I have suffered too much."

She ceased. Never had the absolute purity of the charming creature, born
and bred in an atmosphere of corruption, and remaining in the same so
intact, so noble, so frank, flashed out as at that moment. All that
virgin and unhappy soul was in her eyes which implored Julien, on her
lips which trembled at having spoken thus, on her brow around which
floated, like an aureole, the fair hair stirred by the breeze which
entered the open window. She had found the means of daring that
prodigious step, the boldest a woman can permit herself, still more so a
young girl, with so chaste a simplicity that at that moment Dorsenne
would not have dared to touch even the hand of that child who confided
herself to him so madly, so loyally.

Dorsenne was undoubtedly greatly interested in her, with a curiosity,
without enthusiasm, and against which a reaction had already set in. That
touching speech, in which trembled a distress so tender and each word of
which later on made him weep with regret, produced upon him at that
moment an impression of fear rather than love or pity. When at length he
broke the cruel silence, the sound of his voice revealed to the unhappy
girl the uselessness of that supreme appeal addressed by her to life.

She had only kept, to exorcise the demon of suicide, her hope in the
heart of that man, and that heart, toward which she turned in so
immoderate a transport, drew back instead of responding.

"Calm yourself, I beseech you," said he to her. "You can understand that
I am very much moved, very much surprised, at what I have heard! I did
not suspect it. My God! How troubled you are. And yet," he continued with
more firmness, "I should despise myself were I to lie to you. You have
been so loyal toward me.... To marry you? Ah, it would be the most
delightful dream of happiness if that dream were not prevented by
honesty. Poor child," and his voice sounded almost bitter, "you do not
know me. You do not know what a writer of my order is, and that to unite
your destiny to mine would be for you martyrdom more seve