"Say rather that nothing will induce me to break my word."
"Oh!" cried the baroness, pressing her hands upon her eyes, "unhappy mother that I am!"
Michel knelt beside her.
"I say to you: blessed mother you will be on the day you make the happiness of your son!"
"What is there so seductive about those wolves?" cried the baroness.
"By whatever name you call the woman I love," said Michel, "I shall reply to you: she has every quality that a man should seek in a wife; and it is not for you and me, mother, who have suffered so much from calumny, to seize, as readily as you have done, on the calumnies told of others."
"No, no, no!" cried the baroness, "never will I consent to such a marriage!"
"In that case, mother," said Michel, "take back those cheques and the letter to the captain of the vessel; they are useless to me, for I will not leave this place."
"What else can you do, you miserable boy?"
"Oh, that's simple enough. I'd rather die than live separated from her I love. I am cured. I am able to shoulder a musket. The remains of the insurrectionary army are collected in the forest of Touvois under command of the Marquis de Souday. I will join them, and fight with them, and get myself killed at the first chance. This is the second time death has missed me," he added with a pallid smile. "The third time his aim may be true and his hand steady."