“Diana! Not this end to all our love! Not this end to the high hopes with which we came. It is not ourselves, but Liberty, sister. See, he will be good; he will not hurt you” (she was groping eagerly for the knife, which he ended by letting her secure). “I did not know,” she cried, “I did not guess—until this moment I did not. I will never see him again, if you wish. I will be no man’s wife to your hurt. Diana! It is the truth!”
I let her rave. I never took my eyes from his devil’s face.
“So,” I said, deeper now, and with my hands upon my storming bosom, “you would make your sacrifice to Reason, monsieur, in me—me! My mission was to be the Pucelle’s, and her glorious fate, with which, I suppose, you were to assure your little after-paradise of loves. O, a grateful use for this poor heart, to be a stepping-stone to the respectable amours of Monsieur and Madame Pissani! Only I renounce the honour, as I renounce the cause of the paragon of taste who could prefer that for this.”
I tore at my dress.
“You have made your choice,” I cried; “it is all said. Only think, monsieur, think sometimes of what you have lost, before you talk of the battle being won!”
I hurried from the room, even as my false friend called to me again in agony, “Diana! Believe me! Listen to me! O, what shall I do?” But, even in my frenzy, I had the wit to pause the other side of the door, listening for his response.
“Thou shalt go back to Rome, my dearest, my heart,” he said. “Hearken to me, my Pattia.”
But she only sobbed dreadfully, “Not like this—not in this disgrace. I must follow her, even if she kills me.”
“By my soul, no,” he said; “for your life is mine.”
I could hear them wrestling together; till, in a moment, he prevailed, even before I had guessed he would.