"Tell me, Emile, if she should advise you to lie, would you still love her?"
"I don't know! I think so! Can I imagine a state of things in which I should not love her, since I love her now?"
"You really love her, I see. Alas! I too have loved!"
"Tell me, then, if you would have sacrificed honor?"
"Perhaps so, if I had been loved."
"Oh! feeble creatures that we are!" cried Emile. "God help me! shall I not find a counsellor, a guide, a help in my distress? Will no one give me strength? Strength, O my God! I implore it on my knees; and never have I prayed with greater faith and ardor: I beseech Thee, give me strength!"
The marquis went to Emile and pressed him to his heart. Tears were rolling down his cheeks; but he held his peace and did not help him.
Emile wept a long time on his breast and felt that he loved that man whom each succeeding test revealed to him as an extremely sensitive rather than really strong man. He loved him the more for it, but he grieved that he did not find in him the energetic and powerful adviser upon whom he had counted in his weakness. He left him at nightfall and the marquis said nothing more to him than: "Come again to-morrow; I must know what you decide upon. I shall not sleep until I see you in a calmer frame of mind."
Emile took the longest road to return to Gargilesse; he made a détour by means of which he passed within a short distance of Châteaubrun by shaded paths which hid him from sight, and when he was quite near the ruins, he stopped, fairly distracted at the thought of what Gilberte must have suffered since his father's heartless visit, and not daring to carry her better news lest he should lose all his courage and virtue.
He had been standing there several minutes, unable to come to any decision, when he heard his name called in an undertone, with an accent that sent a thrill through him; and looking toward a small clump of oaks at the right hand side of the road, he saw in the shadow a dress gliding behind the bushes. He darted in that direction, and when he was far enough among the trees to be in no danger of being seen, Gilberte turned and called him again.