“But our enemies will inform her of everything, Valentine, and think how she will make you suffer!”
“No matter. The dictates of conscience must be obeyed. Ah, why can I not, at the price of my life, spare her the agony of hearing that her only daughter, her Valentine, has disgraced her name? She may be hard, cruel, pitiless toward me; but have I not deserved it? Oh, my only friend, we have been revelling in a dream too beautiful to last! I have long dreaded this awakening. Like two weak, credulous fools we imagined that happiness could exist beyond the pale of duty. Sooner or later stolen joys must be dearly paid for. After the sweet comes the bitter; we must bow our heads, and drink the cup to the dregs.”
This cold reasoning, this sad resignation, was more than the fiery nature of Gaston could bear.
“You shall not talk thus!” he cried. “Can you not feel that the bare idea of your suffering humiliation drives me mad?”
“Alas! I see nothing but disgrace, the most fearful disgrace, staring me in the face.”
“What do you mean, Valentine?”
“I have not told you, Gaston, I am——”
Here she stopped, hesitated, and then added:
“Nothing! I am a fool.”
Had Gaston been less excited, he would have suspected some new misfortune beneath this reticence of Valentine; but his mind was too full of one idea—that of possessing her.