She looked him in the face. “I can read your eyes, and I know you love me. I think you mean to kill me. I have heard men kill the thing they love.”
“Of course they do; sooner than another should have it, they kill it—they kill it.”
“God has not made them patient like us women. Poor Camille!”
“Patience dies when hope dies. Come, Madame Raynal, say a prayer, for you are going to die.”
“God bless you, Camille!” said the poor girl, putting her hands together in her last prayer. At this sweet touch of affection, Camille hung his head, and sobbed. Then suddenly lashing himself into fury, he cried,—
“You are my betrothed! you talk of duty; but you forget your duty to me. Are you not my betrothed this four years? Answer me that.”
“Yes, Camille, I was.”
“Did I not suffer death a hundred times for you, to keep faith with you, you cold-blooded traitress with an angel’s face?”
“Ah, Camille! can you speak so bitterly to me? Have I denied your right to kill me? You shall never dishonor me, but you shall kill me, if it is your pleasure. I do not resist. Why, then, speak to me like that; must the last words I hear from your mouth be words of anger, cruel Camille?”
“I was wrong. But it is so hard to kill her I love in cold blood. I want anger as well as despair to keep me to it. Come, turn your head away from me, and all our troubles shall end.”