“And have I confided this bracelet to any one?” cried Marguerite, pushing back the sleeve of her gown—“Look!”
“Yes, but you, Marguerite, you are not proscribed—dishonored, in the eyes of the whole world—thrown amongst a condemned race!”
“Of what importance is that. Is he not innocent?”
“And then, he thought,” continued Paul, wishing to discover the extent of the devotedness and love of his sister, “he thought that delicacy required, banished as he is for ever from society, that he should offer you, if not restore to you, the liberty of disposing of your hand.”
“When a woman has done for a man that which I have done for him,” replied Marguerite, “her only excuse is to love him eternally, and it is that I mean to do.”
“Oh! you are an angel!” exclaimed Paul.
“Tell me!” rejoined Marguerite, seizing the young man’s hands, and looking at him with a supplicating air—
“What?”
“Have you seen him, then?”
“I am his friend, his brother.”