"For the last quarter of an hour," said Lorin; "indeed scarcely so long that I should leave you to act according to your own pleasure on this subject; and then to die now, it is necessary to die a Republican while you would die an aristocrat."
"Ah!" said Maurice, whose blood began to boil from impassioned grief, resulting from the consciousness of his own criminality, "you go too far, friend Lorin."
"I shall go farther still, and forewarn you, that if you turn aristocrat—"
"You will denounce me?"
"For shame! No. I will confine you in a cellar, and have you sought after to the sound of the drum, like something lost; then I will proclaim that the aristocrats, knowing what you had in reserve for them, had seized, victimized, and starved you, so that, like Provost Élie de Beaumont, Monsieur Latude, and others, when found, you will be publicly crowned with flowers by the ladies of La Halle, and the ragpickers of Section Victor. Make haste, then, to appear again an Aristides, else your business is concluded."
"Lorin! Lorin! I feel that you are right; but I am dragged along. I am sliding down the precipice. Are you displeased with me, because my fate drags me onward?"
"I am not displeased with you, but I shall remonstrate with you. Call to mind a few of the scenes enacted daily between Pylades and Orestes,—scenes which prove beyond all doubt that friendship is a paradox, since these model friends quarrelled without ceasing."
"Leave me to my fate, Lorin, you had much better do so."
"I will never abandon you."