“You’re not married?” she asked, “you’re not married?” then, breaking off suddenly: “I don’t care if you are, I don’t! I love you—love you! Nobody would look after you as I would. I don’t; no, I don’t care.”
She drew up closer and closer to him.
“No, I don’t mean that I was married,” he said. “I meant—what you know—that my life isn’t worth, perhaps, a ten-days’ purchase.”
Her face became pale again.
“You can have my life,” she said; “have it just as long as you live, and I’ll make you live a year—yes, I’ll make you live ten years. Love can do anything; it can do everything. We’ll be married to-morrow.”
“That’s rather difficult,” he answered. “You see, you’re a Catholic, and I’m a Protestant, and they wouldn’t marry us here, I’m afraid; at least not at once, perhaps not at all. You see, I—I’ve only one lung.”
He had never spoken so frankly of his illness before. “Well, we can go over the border into the English province—into Upper Canada,” she answered. “Don’t you see? It’s only a few miles’ drive to a village. I can go over one day, get the licence; then, a couple of days after, we can go over together and be married. And then, then—”
He smiled. “Well, then it won’t make much difference, will it? We’ll have to fit in one way or another, eh?”
“We could be married afterwards by the Cure, if everybody made a fuss. The bishop would give us a dispensation. It’s a great sin to marry a heretic, but—”
“But love—eh, ma cigale!” Then he took her eagerly, tenderly into his arms; and probably he had then the best moment in his life.