"Then let us hope for the future," she said. "The present is hostile enough to us. Not only your family dissensions, but political events threaten to part us."
"Part us? And wherefore?"
"Why, you must see that we cannot stay here if the war, which Henri thinks unavoidable, should really be declared. As soon as our ambassador leaves the capital we must go too. Henri tells me to be ready for a hasty departure."
"Then let Henri go, but stay yourself. I cannot let you go. I know that I ask a sacrifice of you, but remember what I have sacrificed for your sake. To lose you now would be too horrible! You must stay!"
"What should I stay for?" she asked, sternly. "To look on while the general carries out his threat, and sends you in full uniform to fight against France?"
Raoul clinched his fist. "Héloïse, do not you too drive me to desperation. If you knew all that I have had, and yet have, to bear! My grandfather has scarcely spoken to me since yesterday, but his eyes, when he looks at me, make my blood boil, they are so full of scorn. My mother, from whom I have hitherto never known anything save love and tenderness, reproaches me bitterly. And now you talk of our parting, and I must brave it all alone. It is beyond endurance."
He did indeed look like a desperate man, and Héloïse gazed at him with mingled pity and indignation. With all his gallantry, his reckless bravery, and his scorn of danger, he was but as a reed shaken by the wind when moral courage was in question.
"Must we be parted?" she asked, gently. "It is for you to decide that, Raoul."
He looked up surprised. "For me?"
"Certainly. I cannot stay any more than can Henri. We know that you are ours at heart, and that only compulsion keeps you among Germans. Break loose from your bonds, and follow us to France!"