Poverty would
have brought us nearer together. But it's honor, Marius, honor that
is lost too! The name I bear is forever stained. Whether my father
is caught, or whether he escapes, he will be tried all the same,
condemned, and sentenced to a degrading penalty for embezzlement and
forgery."

If M. de Tregars was allowing her to proceed thus, it was because he
felt all his thoughts whirling in his brain; because she looked so
beautiful thus, all in tears, and her hair loose; because there
arose from her person so subtle a charm, that words failed him to
express the sensations that agitated him.

"Can you," she went on, "take for your wife the daughter of a
dishonored man? No, you cannot. Forgive me, then, for having for
a moment turned away your life from its object; forgive the sorrow
which I have caused you; leave me to the misery of my fate;
forget me!"

She was suffocating.

"Ah, you have never loved me!" exclaimed Marius.

Raising her hands to heaven,

"Thou hearest him, great God!" she uttered, as if shocked by a
blasphemy.

"Would it be easy for you to forget me then? Were I to be struck
by misfortune, would you break our engagement, cease to love me?"

She ventured to take his hands, and, pressing them between hers,

"To cease loving you no longer depends on my will," she murmured
with quivering lips. "Poor, abandoned of all, disgraced, criminal
even, I should love you still and always."

With a passionate gesture, Marius threw his arm around her waist,
and, drawing her to his breast, covered her blonde hair with
burning kisses.

"Well, 'tis thus that I love you too!" he exclaimed, "and with all
my soul, exclusively, and for life! What do I care for your
parents? Do I know them? Your father--does he exist? Your name
--it is mine, the spotless name of the Tregars. You are my wife!
mine, mine!"

She was struggling feebly: an almost invincible stupor was creeping
over her. She felt her reason disturbed, her energy giving way, a
film before her eyes, the air failing to her heaving chest.

A great effort of her will restored her to consciousness. She
withdrew gently, and sank upon a chair, less strong against joy
than she had been against sorrow.

"Pardon me," she stammered, "pardon me for having doubted you!"

M. de Tregars was not much less agitated than Mlle. Gilberte: but he
was a man; and the springs of his energy were of a superior temper.
In less than a minute he had fully r