Lauriane pressed Mario's loyal hands in hers.
"You are an angel," she said, "and it requires courage on my part to refuse you. But I love you too well to chain your brilliant destiny to mine, melancholy, as it is, and alas! complete; I love your father too well to be willing to cause him this sorrow."
"My father? you doubt my father?" cried Mario, beside himself. "Ah! Lauriane, do you not understand that your father deceived you! Say that you do not love me, that you have never loved me!"
At that moment there was a violent ringing at the gate of the convent, and a moment later the Marquis de Bois-Doré rushed into the parlor and embraced Mario and Lauriane in turn.
He had not received Clindor's message, but Lauriane's letter; and as the treaty was signed and he was returning to Berry, he had come to the convent to take her home with him. He was greatly surprised to find Mario there, thinking that he had already returned to Briantes.
The situation was explained to him; then Mario, still intensely agitated, said to him:
"You arrive in good time, father. Lauriane here thinks that you do not love her!"
A second explanation ensued. The marquis perceived Mario's agitation and grief, and he smiled.
Lauriane suddenly understood that smile.
"Dear marquis," she cried, blushing and trembling from head to foot, "give me back the letter I wrote you when I thought that your son was dead! Give it back to me, I insist; do not show it."