Maurice hung his head, abashed by her earnest words, dazzled by the sublime expression of her face.
Reason returned; he realized the enormity of his suspicions, and was horrified with himself for having dared to give utterance to them.
“Oh! pardon!” he faltered, “pardon!”
What did the mysterious causes of all these events which had so rapidly succeeded each other, or M. Lacheneur’s secrets, or Marie-Anne’s reticence, matter to him now?
He was seeking some chance of salvation; he believed that he had found it.
“We must fly!” he exclaimed: “fly at once without pausing to look back. Before night we shall have passed the frontier.”
He sprang toward her with outstretched arms, as if to seize her and bear her away; but she checked him by a single look.
“Fly!” said she, reproachfully; “fly! and is it you, Maurice, who counsel me thus? What! while misfortune is crushing my poor father to the earth, shall I add despair and shame to his sorrows? His friends have deserted him; shall I, his daughter, also abandon him? Ah! if I did that, I should be the vilest, the most cowardly of creatures! If my father, yesterday, when I believed him the owner of Sairmeuse, had demanded the sacrifice to which I consented last evening, I might, perhaps, have resolved upon the extreme measure you have counselled. In broad daylight I might have left Sairmeuse on the arm of my lover. It is not the world that I fear! But if one might consent to fly from the chateau of a rich and happy father, one cannot consent to desert the poor abode of a despairing and penniless parent. Leave me, Maurice, where honor holds me. It will not be difficult for me, who am the daughter of generations of peasants, to become a peasant. Go! I cannot endure more! Go! and remember that one cannot be utterly wretched if one’s conscience is clean, and one’s duty fulfilled!”
Maurice was about to reply, when a crackling of dry branches made him turn his head.
Scarcely ten paces off, Martial de Sairmeuse was standing motionless, leaning upon his gun.