"In your eyes, perhaps, but not in mine, Mademoiselle Victoria. Whatever a past of which I am ignorant may hold, a past in which I am in no way concerned, you are now for me the one creature in the world most worthy of respect and love. Life without you will be insupportable. I have resolved to die—"
"What a crazy thought! I do not love you with a lover's love. Why do you persist thus in a struggle for the impossible, poor foolish lad?"
"I have no thought of a struggle. I am resigned—and shall put myself out of the way."
These final words of Oliver's, pronounced without emphasis or bitterness, could not but remove from Victoria's mind her last doubts as to the unfortunate boy's resolution. She had been used long enough to read to the bottom of his open and childlike soul, to recognize there a blending of gentleness and strength of will. Hardly escaped from one almost certain death, the apprentice was all the more determined to seek in self-destruction the end of his torments. Victoria communed long with herself, and after an extended silence, began again:
"Oliver, you are resolved to die. I do not wish at any price to reawaken your hopes by entering into any engagement with you whatsoever. I do not wish to revive your illusions—they must be destroyed, and forever. But in the name of the interest I have always borne you, in the name even of your attachment for me, I ask of you only to promise me not to attempt to destroy your life until to-morrow at midnight. At that hour, you will meet me here again, or if not you will receive a letter from me. If the interview I shall then have with you, or if the reading of my letter does not change your sad designs, you may put them into execution, as you please. Let your destiny then run its course."
"To die twenty-four hours later, or twenty-four hours earlier, it matters little. I promise not to go before the hour you have set," replied the apprentice with such marked indifference that it was clear the poor boy entertained no hope of his suicide's being obviated. Again turning to the door, he added:
"Mademoiselle Victoria, to-morrow, then, shall decide my fate."
"Oliver, we have a full day to reflect on the grave matter which thus links both our existences."
Hardly had Oliver left the parlor when Victoria rose, and running to the door of an ante-room where John Lebrenn and his wife were concealed, said to them in a shaking voice:
"You heard everything?"