"To bid you an eternal farewell."
He had lost his wits, she faltered, she could not understand....
He stopped her with a very slight movement of the hand:
"Élodie, I cannot any more accept your love."
She begged him to walk on further; people could see them, overhear them, where they were.
He moved on a score of yards, and resumed, very quietly:
"I have made sacrifices to my country of my life and my honour. I shall die infamous; I shall have naught to leave you, unhappy girl, save an execrated memory.... We, love? Can anyone love me still?... Can I love?"
She told him he was mad; that she loved him, that she would always love him. She was ardent, sincere; but she felt as well as he, she felt better than he, that he was right. But she fought against the evidence of her senses.
He went on:
"I blame myself for nothing. What I have done, I would do again. I have made myself anathema for my country's sake. I am accursed. I have put myself outside humanity; I shall never re-enter its pale. No, the great task is not finished. Oh! clemency, forgiveness!—Do the traitors forgive? Are the conspirators clement? scoundrels, parricides multiply unceasingly; they spring up from underground, they swarm in from all our frontiers,—young men, who would have done better to perish with our armies, old men, children, women, with every mark of innocence, purity, and grace. They are offered up a sacrifice,—and more victims are ready for the knife!... You can see, Élodie, I must needs renounce love, renounce all joy, all sweetness of life, renounce life itself."