"Who? I, monsieur!" cried Helene; "I abandon him at a moment when you yourself tell me that a danger threatens him that I had not known! Oh, no, no, monsieur! We two are alone in the world, we have but each other: Gaston has no parents, I have none either; or if I have, they have been separated from me for sixteen years, and are accustomed to my absence. We may, then, lose ourselves together without costing any one a tear—oh, I deceived you, monsieur, and whatever crime he has committed, or may commit, I am his accomplice."
"Ah!" murmured the regent, in a choking voice, "my last hope fails me; she loves him."
Helene turned, with astonishment, toward the stranger who took so lively an interest in her sorrow. The regent composed himself.
"But," continued he, "did you not almost renounce him? Did you not tell him, the day you separated, that you could not dispose of your heart and person?"
"Yes, I told him so," replied the young girl, with exaltation, "because at that time I believed him happy, because I did not know that his liberty, perhaps his life, were compromised; then, my heart would have suffered, but my conscience would have remained tranquil; it was a grief to bear, not a remorse to combat; but since I know him threatened—unhappy—I feel that his life is mine."
"But you exaggerate your love for him," replied the regent, determined to ascertain his daughter's feelings. "This love would yield to absence."
"It would yield to nothing, monsieur; in the isolation in which my parents left me, this love has become my only hope, my happiness, my life. Ah! monsieur, if you have any influence with him—and you must have, since he confides to you the secrets which he keeps from me—in Heaven's name, induce him to renounce these projects, of which you speak; tell him what I dare not tell him myself, that I love him beyond all expression; tell him that his fate shall be mine; that if he be exiled, I exile myself; if he be imprisoned, I will be so too; and that if he dies, I die. Tell him that, monsieur; and add—add that you saw, by my tears and by my despair, that I spoke the truth."
"Unhappy child!" murmured the regent.
Indeed, Helene's situation was a pitiable one. By the paleness of her cheeks, it was evident that she suffered cruelly; while she spoke, her tears flowed ceaselessly, and it was easy to see that every word came from her heart, and that what she had said she would do.
"Well," said the regent, "I promise you that I will do all I can to save the chevalier."