"Affection and esteem," she replied; "I knew that you had refused to fight against the Protestants."
"Ah! I will never do that! and yet I never told my principal reason! I can tell it to you now: I would not run the risk of firing upon your father and your friends. Lauriane, I always loved you dearly; why were your letters to my father always so cold with respect to me?"
"I, too, can speak with perfect frankness now, my dear Mario. My father, when we went to Bourges the last time, four years ago, had the strange idea of affiancing us to each other. Your father rejected, as he was bound to do, the suggestion of so ill-assorted a union; and I, a little humiliated by my poor father's thoughtlessness, informed you several times of marriage projects, to which I gave but slight consideration in the melancholy situation in which I then was. At the same time I was cold to you in words, my dear Mario, and perhaps somewhat humiliated by the thought of the presumption which you would naturally attribute to me. Let us smile to-day at all that past misery, and do me the justice to believe that I do not entertain the slightest thought of marriage. I am twenty-three years old; my time has gone by. My party is crushed, and my fortune will be confiscated whenever it suits the Prince de Condé's caprice. My poor father is dead, stripped by the hazard of war of the property he had amassed in his maritime expeditions. So I am neither rich nor beautiful nor young. I have but one cause of rejoicing: it is that I can live hereafter not far from you, without being suspected of aspiring to anything except your friendship."
Mario listened, trembling and bewildered.
"Lauriane," he said impetuously, "you show your disdain of my name, my youth and my heart when you speak of the tranquil bond of friendship which it would be easy for you to resume. But it is for me to say: It is too late. I have always loved you reverently, and I do not think that my love is any less reverent because I have loved you more passionately since I lost you and since I have found you again. I, too, Lauriane, have suffered keenly! But I have never despaired altogether. When I had carefully concealed my grief, in order not to allow myself to languish and die, God sent me, in His merciful compassion, gusts of hope in Him and of faith in you.
"'She knows, she must know that it would kill me,' I would say to myself; 'she will love me, she will not love another, because of her kindness of heart if for no other reason! I am only a child, but I can soon and very quickly make myself worthy of her, by working hard, by keeping my heart pure, by having courage, by making them happy who will love me, and by fighting gallantly when there comes a righteous war': for this one is righteous, is it not, Lauriane, and your heart cannot be so changed that you love the Spaniards to-day?"
"No, surely not!" she replied. "And it was because Monsieur de Rohan insisted upon this mad, disgraceful and desperate alliance that I awaited the result of events here, and took no deeper interest in them."
"You see, Lauriane, that nothing separates us now. If I am not the good and learned man that I would like to be, I believe at all events that I know as much and can fight as stoutly as most of the young men of twenty-five to thirty years, with whom I came in contact in the army. As for my affection, Lauriane, I can answer for its lasting so long as my life shall last. I am entitled to no credit for it, for I was born loyal, and from childhood it has been impossible for me to consider any other woman than you lovely and lovable; I placed my heart in your keeping the first day that I saw you. I have never become accustomed to living apart from you, and I have never passed a single day at Briantes without sitting down to dream of you, instead of playing and amusing myself, whenever I left my studies for an instant. What I thought, what I said to you eight years ago, in the famous labyrinth, I still think and I say to you again to-day.
"I cannot live happily without you, Lauriane! In order to be happy, I must see you always. I know that I have no right to say to you: 'Make me happy!'—You owe me nothing! but perhaps you will be happier with me than you were with your poor father, or than you are now, alone, persecuted, and obliged to conceal yourself. I do not need that you should be rich; but if you are bent upon being rich, I will enforce your rights as soon as peace is assured; I will defend you against your enemies. Married to me, you will have absolute freedom of conscience; and under my protection you can pray as you choose. We will not fight for our altars, as the King and Queen of England are doing at this moment. If you must have a title, why I am bemarquised for good and all. Whether you are still beautiful or not, I do not know, I never shall know. I see that you have changed. You are paler now and thinner than when you were sixteen years old; but in my eyes you are much lovelier so, and if you had never been lovely, it seems to me that I should have loved you no less dearly.
"If therefore a woman's happiness consists in being beautiful in the eyes of the man she loves, love me, Lauriane, and you will have that happiness. Listen, Lauriane, and let me speak to you as in the old days. I have been submissive and brave down to this day; do not deprive me of my strength; if you wish to wait still longer and know me as a friend and a brother, I will wait until you trust me. If you wish me to go back to the army—and, in truth, such is my desire—come to the camp as my father's ward and adopted daughter. I will see you only when you choose, not at all if you insist, until you accept me for your husband. But do not leave us again; for, with or without your love, we are and desire always to be your family, your friends, your defenders, your slaves, whatever you wish us to be, provided that you permit us to love you and serve you."