He became whiter than his shirt.
“You wish to release me from my engagement!” he exclaimed. “You—”
“Is it not my duty? Ah! if it had only been our fortune, I should perhaps have rejoiced to lose it. I know your heart. Poverty would have brought us nearer together. But it’s honor, Marius, honor that is lost too! The name I bear is forever stained. Whether my father is caught, or whether he escapes, he will be tried all the same, condemned, and sentenced to a degrading penalty for embezzlement and forgery.”
If M. de Tregars was allowing her to proceed thus, it was because he felt all his thoughts whirling in his brain; because she looked so beautiful thus, all in tears, and her hair loose; because there arose from her person so subtle a charm, that words failed him to express the sensations that agitated him.
“Can you,” she went on, “take for your wife the daughter of a dishonored man? No, you cannot. Forgive me, then, for having for a moment turned away your life from its object; forgive the sorrow which I have caused you; leave me to the misery of my fate; forget me!”
She was suffocating.
“Ah, you have never loved me!” exclaimed Marius.
Raising her hands to heaven,
“Thou hearest him, great God!” she uttered, as if shocked by a blasphemy.
“Would it be easy for you to forget me then? Were I to be struck by misfortune, would you break our engagement, cease to love me?”