"But if you love me—if your regrets are as bitter as mine, you will be very unhappy. What will remain for you?"
"Charity, your highness! that admirable sentiment which you have awakened in my heart; that sentiment which has caused me to forget so many sorrows, and to which I am indebted for so many sweet and tender consolations."
"Pray listen to me. Be it so: I will marry this woman; but once the sacrifice accomplished, will it be possible for me to live with her, with her who only inspires me with aversion and contempt? No, no; we shall remain forever separated; never shall she see my child. Thus Fleur-de-Marie will lose in you the most tender of mothers."
"But there will remain for her the most tender of fathers. By the marriage, she will be the legitimate daughter of a sovereign prince of Europe; and thus, as your highness has said, her position will be as splendid as it was obscure."
"You are without pity. I am very unhappy."
"Dare you speak thus—you, so great, so just—you, who so nobly comprehend duty, devotion, and self-denial? A short time since, before this providential revelation, when you wept for your child with such bitter tears, if any one had said to you, 'Make one wish—one alone, and it shall be realized,' you would have cried, 'My daughter!—oh! my daughter—let her live!' This is accomplished; your daughter is restored to you, and you call yourself unhappy. Ah! may Fleur-de-Marie not hear your highness."
"You are right," said Rudolph, after, a long silence; "so much happiness would have been heaven upon earth; but I do not deserve that. I will do my duty. I do not regret my hesitation. I owe to it a new proof of the beauty and noble sentiments of your mind."
"This mind—it is you who have exalted and elevated it. If that which I do is well, it is you whom I praise for it. Courage, my lord; as soon as Fleur-de-Marie can stand the fatigue of traveling, take her with you. Once in Germany, a country so calm and grave, her transformation will be complete, and the past will only be to her a sad and distant dream."
"But you? but you?"
"I—I can well tell you that now, because I shall always say it with joy and pride: my love for you shall be my guardian angel, my savior, my virtue, my future. Every day I will write you; pardon me this demand—it is the only one I shall make. Your highness, you will reply to me sometimes, to give me news of her, who, for a moment at least, I called my daughter," said Clémence, without being able to restrain her tears; "and who shall always be so, at least in my thoughts; in fine, when time shall have given us the right openly to avow the unalterable affection which binds us—ah, well! I swear it in the name of your daughter, if you desire it, I will go and live in Germany—in the same city with you—never more to part; and thus terminate a life which might have been more happy, but which will have been at least worthy and honorable."