“As you used to love me?”
“More, far more. Give me the pistol. I love you, dearest. I love you.”
At these delicious words he lost all power of resistance, she saw; and her soft and supple hand stole in and closed upon his, and gently withdrew the weapon, and threw it into the water. “Good Camille! now give me the other.”
“How do you know there is another?”
“I know you are not the man to kill a woman and spare yourself. Come.”
“Josephine, have pity on me, do not deceive me; pray do not take this, my only friend, from me, unless you really love me.”
“I love you; I adore you,” was her reply.
She leaned her head on his shoulder, but with her hand she sought his, and even as she uttered those loving words she coaxed the weapon from his now unresisting grasp.
“There, it is gone; you are saved from death—saved from crime.” And with that, the danger was over, she trembled for the first time, and fell to sobbing hysterically.
He threw himself at her knees, and embraced them again and again, and begged her forgiveness in a transport of remorse and self-reproach.