little
explicable as fear itself. The young man was soon beside her before the
chimney, where a bright fire was burning. Both were voiceless, fearing
to look at each other, or even to make a movement. One and the same hope
united them, the same doubt; it was agony, it was joy.

"Monsieur," said Mademoiselle de Verneuil at last, in a trembling voice,
"your safety alone has brought me here."

"My safety!" he said, bitterly.

"Yes," she answered; "so long as I stay at Fougeres your life is
threatened, and I love you too well not to leave it. I go to-night."

"Leave me! ah, dear love, I shall follow you."

"Follow me!--the Blues?"

"Dear Marie, what have the Blues got to do with our love?"

"But it seems impossible that you can stay with me in France, and still
more impossible that you should leave it with me."

"Is there anything impossible to those who love?"

"Ah, true! true! all is possible--have I not the courage to resign you,
for your sake."

"What! you could give yourself to a hateful being whom you did not love,
and you refuse to make the happiness of a man who adores you, whose life
you fill, who swears to be yours, and yours only. Hear me, Marie, do you
love me?"

"Yes," she said.

"Then be mine."

"You forget the infamous career of a lost woman; I return to it, I leave
you--yes, that I may not bring upon your head the contempt that falls on
mine. Without that fear, perhaps--"

"But if I fear nothing?"

"Can I be sure of that? I am distrustful. Who could be otherwise in
a position like mine? If the love we inspire cannot last at least it
should be complete, and help us to bear with joy the injustice of the
world. But you, what have you done for me? You desire me. Do you think
that lifts you above other men? Suppose I bade you renounce your ideas,
your hopes, your king (who will, perhaps, laugh when he hears you have
died for him, while I would die for you with sacred joy!); or suppose I
should ask you to send your submission to the First Consul so that you
could follow me to Paris, or go with me to America,--away from the world
where all is vanity; suppose I thus tested you, to know if you loved
me for myself as at this moment I love you? To say all in a word, if I
wished, instead of rising to your level, that you should fall to mine,
what would you do?"

"Hush, Marie, be silent, do not slander yourself," he cried. "Poor
child, I comprehend you. If my first desire was passion, my passion now