"Oh, my God! you will drive me mad by speaking thus. Where are you conducting me? Where are you dragging me?"
"In all probability to death."
"Let me then offer up one prayer."
"To whom?"
"It matters not to you. The moment you deprive me of life, my debt is cancelled. My debt paid, I owe you nothing."
"True," said Dixmer, retiring into another room; "I will await you." And he left her once more alone.
Geneviève sank on her knees before the portrait, pressing her hands against her breaking heart.
"Maurice," said she, in a low tone, "pardon me; I did not expect to be happy, but I hoped to make you so. Maurice, I am depriving you of a joy that constituted your life; pardon me for causing your death, my best beloved."
Then severing a ringlet from her mass of curls, she bound it round the bouquet of violets, and placed them beneath the portrait, which insensible, and speechless as it was, still appeared to assume an expression of grief at her departure.
At least so it appeared to the unfortunate Geneviève, as she gazed at it through her tears.