He looked at her. He began to fear that she was faltering. She needed encouragement to make her revelation to him.
“I have trusted you, dear one; ah, you know not to what extent I would trust you. I would go to the ends of the earth to hear what you have to tell me.”
“That is what I wish,” she cried. “Could we not meet at some distant spot where all that my heart contains might be yours? Ah, let us fly thither without delay! Delay may make havoc of our future.”
“Pray, calm yourself,” said the Duke. He perceived that his companion was of an hysterical type. She would need to be treated with great tact before she could be brought to communicate anything that she knew.
“Ah, 't is easy for a soldier to be calm,” she cried. “'T is not so easy for a poor woman who is by nature trustful and yet by experience distrustful.”
“You may trust me, my sweet creature,” he said.
“May I? May I?” she whispered, looking into his face. “Ah, no, no; leave me—leave me alone to die here! Mine was the fault—mine alone.”
She had put her hands before her face and gone excitedly halfway down the apartment.
“You shall not die!” he cried, following her. “Just heaven, child, am I nobody? Is my protection worth nothing, that you should be afraid?”
“Your protection?” She had removed her hands from her face. “What! you will let me be under your protection?”