“What day?”
“The day for your flight.”
This word alone recalled Jacques to a sense of his fearful position. He was soaring in the supreme heights of the ether, and he was plunged down into the vile mud of reality. His face, radiant with celestial joy, grew dark in an instant, and he said hoarsely,—
“That dream is too beautiful to be realized.”
“What do you say?” she stammered.
“I can not, I must not, escape!”
“You refuse me, Jacques?”
He made no reply.
“You refuse me, when I swear to you that I will join you, and share your exile? Do you doubt my word? Do you fear that my grandfather or my aunts might keep me here in spite of myself?”
As this suppliant voice fell upon his ears, Jacques felt as if all his energy abandoned him, and his will was shaken.