“Oh! you love me like an affectionate brother; let me hope that, Raoul.”
“As a brother! undeceive yourself, Louise. I love you as a lover—as a husband, with the deepest, the truest, the fondest affection.”
“Raoul, Raoul!”
“As a brother! Oh, Louise! I love you so deeply, that I would have shed my blood for you, drop by drop; I would, oh! how willingly, have suffered myself to be torn to pieces for your sake, have sacrificed my very future for you. I love you so deeply, Louise, that my heart feels dead and crushed within me,—my faith in human nature all is gone,—my eyes have lost their light; I loved you so deeply, that I now no longer see, think of, care for, anything, either in this world or the next.”
“Raoul—dear Raoul! spare me, I implore you!” cried La Valliere. “Oh! if I had but known—”
“It is too late, Louise; you love, you are happy in your affection; I read your happiness through your tears—behind the tears which the loyalty of your nature makes you shed; I feel the sighs your affection breathes forth. Louise, Louise, you have made me the most abjectly wretched man living; leave me, I entreat you. Adieu! adieu!”
“Forgive me! oh, forgive me, Raoul, for what I have done.”
“Have I not done much, much more? Have I not told you that I love you still?” She buried her face in her hands.
“And to tell you that—do you hear me, Louise?—to tell you that, at such a moment as this, to tell you that, as I have told you, is to pronounce my own sentence of death. Adieu!” La Valliere held out her hands to him in vain.
“We ought not to see each other again in this world,” he said, and as she was on the point of crying out in bitter agony at this remark, he placed his hand on her mouth to stifle the exclamation. She pressed her lips upon it, and fell fainting to the ground. “Olivain,” said Raoul, “take this young lady and bear her to the carriage which is waiting for her at the door.” As Olivain lifted her up, Raoul made a movement as if to dart towards La Valliere, in order to give her a first and last kiss, but, stopping abruptly, he said, “No! she is not mine. I am no thief—as is the king of France.” And he returned to his room, whilst the lackey carried La Valliere, still fainting, to the carriage.