Maxence was fairly stamping with rage.
“And I was not here,” he exclaimed, “to put him out of the house!”
But another was there; and this was just what Mlle. Gilberte wished to come to. But the avowal was difficult, painful even; and it was not without some degree of confusion that she resumed at last,
“You have suspected for a long time, mother, that I was hiding something from you. When you questioned me, I lied; not that I had any thing to blush for, but because I feared for you my father’s anger.”
Her mother and her brother were gazing at her with a look of blank amazement.
“Yes, I had a secret,” she continued. “Boldly, without consulting any one, trusting the sole inspirations of my heart, I had engaged my life to a stranger: I had selected the man whose wife I wished to be.”
Mme. Favoral raised her hands to heaven.
“But this is sheer madness!” she said.
“Unfortunately,” went on the girl, “between that man, my affianced husband before God, and myself, rose a terrible obstacle. He was poor: he thought my father very rich; and he had asked me a delay of three years to conquer a fortune which might enable him to aspire to my hand.”
She stopped: all the blood in her veins was rushing to her face.