“Why, to challenge him and kill him.”
“I trust you will do all you can to spare the venerable M. Hubert the necessity of facing such a hideous danger.”
“I will spare him this and many others by taking upon myself to avenge my cousin. In truth, this is my right, Monsieur l’Abbe. I know the duties of a gentleman quite as well as if I had learnt Latin. You may tell her this from me. Let her sleep in peace. I will keep silence, and if that is useless I will fight.”
“But, Bernard,” replied the abbe in a gentle, insinuating tone, “have you thought of your cousin’s affection for M. de la Marche?”
“All the more reason that I should fight him,” I cried, in a fit of anger.
And I turned my back on him abruptly.
The abbe retailed the whole of our conversation to the penitent. The part that the worthy priest had to play was very embarrassing. Under the seal of confession he had been intrusted with a secret to which in his conversations with me he could make only indirect allusions, to bring me to understand that my pertinacity was a crime, and that the only honourable course was to yield. He hoped too much of me. Virtue such as this was beyond my power, and equally beyond my understanding.
X
A few days passed in apparent calm. Edmee said she was unwell, and rarely quitted her room. M. de la Marche called nearly every day, his chateau being only a short distance off. My dislike for him grew stronger and stronger in spite of all the politeness he showed me. I understood nothing whatever of his dabblings in philosophy, and I opposed all his opinions with the grossest prejudices and expressions at my command. What consoled me in a measure for my secret sufferings was to see that he was no more admitted than myself to Edmee’s rooms.