"Oh!" he exclaimed, "I repeat it, I would rather die."
"Don't talk so, naughty child that you are!" said Mary, striving to assume a maternal tone. "Don't you see that it distresses me?"
"You do not care!" said Michel.
"You cannot doubt," continued Mary, "that my friendship for you is true and most sincere."
"Alas! Mary," said the young man, sadly, "that feeling is not enough to satisfy the passion that consumes my heart ever since I have known you; I do feel certain of your friendship, but my heart wants more."
Mary made a supreme effort.
"My friend, what you ask of me, Bertha will give you; She loves you as you wish to be loved, as you deserve to be loved;" said the poor child, in a trembling voice, striving to put her sister's name as a barrier between herself and the man she loved.
Michel shook his head and sighed.
"Oh, not her! not her!" he said.
"Why--" said Mary as if she did not see his gesture of refusal or hear that cry from his heart. "Why did you write her that letter, which would have filled her with despair had it reached her?"