Old tremors, old lost scruples seized him at the words. He clung to her.
“Take me away, Yolande. I am so sick and helpless.”
“Yes, yes, my love, my husband! Come with me.”
“No, I am too ill. To-morrow. Don’t leave me, now you’ve come.”
“O, I must! Louis!”
“Then I shall die. ’Tis only you can save me—make me a man again.”
“O, love! you kill my heart!”
“To save me, Yolande! To save yourself that new self-reproach if I died without.”
“And if you were to die in spite?”
“O, love! that cried to me to humble it! We will be man and wife to-morrow. I shall live for that—I must. The thought will lay the spectres that would kill me else. Yolande! you will not let me die?”