en, offended you?" said Chanlouineau, sadly. "Forgive one who
is about to die! You cannot refuse to listen to the voice of one, who
after tomorrow, will have vanished from earth forever.

"I have loved you for a long time, Marie-Anne, for more than six years.
Before I saw you, I loved only my possessions. To raise fine crops, and
to amass a fortune, seemed to me, then, the greatest possible happiness
here below.

"Why did I meet you? But at that time you were so high, and I, so low,
that never in my wildest dreams did I aspire to you. I went to church
each Sunday only that I might worship you as peasant women worship the
Blessed Virgin; I went home with my eyes and my heart full of you--and
that was all.

"Then came the misfortune that brought us nearer to each other; and your
father made me as insane, yes, as insane as himself.

"After the insults he received from the Sairmeuse, your father resolved
to revenge himself upon these arrogant nobles, and he selected me for
his accomplice. He had read my heart. On leaving the house of Baron
d'Escorval, on that Sunday evening, which you must remember, the compact
that bound me to your father was made.

"'You love my daughter, my boy,' said he. 'Very well, aid me, and I
promise you, in case we succeed, she shall be your wife. Only,' he
added, 'I must warn you that you hazard your life.'

"But what was life in comparison with the hope that dazzled me! From
that night I gave body, soul, and fortune to the cause. Others were
influenced by hatred, or by ambition; but I was actuated by neither of
these motives.

"What did the quarrels of the great matter to me--a simple laborer? I
knew that the greatest were powerless to give my crops a drop of rain in
season of drought, or a ray of sunshine during the rain.

"I took part in this conspiracy because I loved you----"

"Ah! you are cruel!" exclaimed Marie-Anne, "you are pitiless!"

It seemed to the poor girl that he was reproaching her for the horrible
fate which Lacheneur had brought upon him, and for the terrible part
which her father had imposed upon her, and which she had not been strong
enough to refuse to perform.

But Chanlouineau scarcely heard Marie-Anne's exclamation. All the
bitterness of the past had mounted to his brain like fumes of alcohol.
He was scarcely conscious of his own words.

"But the day soon came," he continued, "when my foolish illusions were
destroyed. You could not be mine since you belonged