"Sir," said Maurice, "permit me to speak a moment with the lady; join in the conversation if you like; it will not be long, I assure you."
Geneviève, with a gesture, asked Maison-Rouge to have patience.
"Thus, Geneviève, thus," continued Maurice, "you have made me a laughing-stock to my friends and a curse to my party. You have rendered me, blind fool that I was, an instrument in all your plots and an easy tool in your hands. Listen! It was an infamous deed; but you will be punished, Madame, for in five minutes this man, who is going to kill me before your eyes, will be lying dead at your feet; or if his life be spared, it will only be to lose his head upon the scaffold."
"He die!" cried Geneviève; "he lose his head upon the scaffold! But you do not know then, Maurice, that he is my protector, and that of my family; that I will give my life for his; that if he dies I will die; and that if you are my love, he is my religion!"
"Ah!" said Maurice, "perhaps you still mean to pretend that you love me. Really, women are sadly weak and contemptible."
Then turning to the young Royalist,—
"Now, sir," said he, "you must either kill me or die yourself."
"Why so?"
"Because, if you do not kill me, I shall arrest you."
Maurice extended his hand to seize him by the collar.