my honour. I shall
die infamous; I shall have naught to leave you, unhappy girl, save an
execrated memory.... We, love? Can anyone love me still?... Can I love?"

She told him he was mad; that she loved him, that she would always love
him. She was ardent, sincere; but she felt as well as he, she felt
better than he, that he was right. But she fought against the evidence
of her senses.

He went on:

"I blame myself for nothing. What I have done, I would do again. I have
made myself anathema for my country's sake. I am accursed. I have put
myself outside humanity; I shall never re-enter its pale. No, the great
task is not finished. Oh! clemency, forgiveness!--Do the traitors
forgive? Are the conspirators clement? scoundrels, parricides multiply
unceasingly; they spring up from underground, they swarm in from all our
frontiers,--young men, who would have done better to perish with our
armies, old men, children, women, with every mark of innocence, purity,
and grace. They are offered up a sacrifice,--and more victims are ready
for the knife!... You can see, Elodie, I must needs renounce love,
renounce all joy, all sweetness of life, renounce life itself."

He fell silent. Born to taste tranquil joys, Elodie not for the first
time was appalled to find, under the tragic kisses of a lover like
Evariste, her voluptuous transports blended with images of horror and
bloodshed; she offered no reply. To Evariste the girl's silence was as a
draught of a bitter chalice.

"Yes, you can see, Elodie, we are on a precipice; our deeds devour us.
Our days, our hours are years. I shall soon have lived a century. Look
at this brow! Is it a lover's? Love!..."

"Evariste, you are mine, I will not let you go; I will not give you back
your freedom."

She was speaking in the language of sacrifice. He felt it; she felt it
herself.

"Will you be able, Elodie, one day to bear witness that I lived faithful
to my duty, that my heart was upright and my soul unsullied, that I knew
no passion but the public good; that I was born to feel and love? Will
you say: 'He did his duty'? But no! You will not say it and I do not ask
you to say it. Perish my memory! My glory is in my own heart; shame
beleaguers me about. If you love me, never speak my name; eternal
silence is best."

A child of eight or nine, trundling its hoop, ran just then between
Gamelin's legs.

He lifted the boy suddenly in his arms:

"Child, you will grow up free, happy, and y