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 severe than your