He paused. He had spoken with a deep power, such as I knew he could use, and I did not wonder that she paled a little, even trembled before it.
"Will you not do it for France?" she said.
"I will not do it for France," he answered. "I will do it for you alone. Will you not be your country's friend? It is no virtue in me to plead patriotism—it is a mere argument, a weapon that I use; but my heart is behind it, and it is a means to that which you will thank me for one day. I would not force you to anything, but I would persuade your reason, question your foolish loyalty to a girl's mistake. Can you think that you are right? You have no friend that commends your cause; the whole country has upbraided you, the Church has cut you off from the man. All is against reunion with him, and most of all your own honour. Come with me, and be commended and blessed here, while over in France homage shall be done you. For you I would take from his Majesty a dukedom which he has offered me more than once."
Suddenly, with a passionate tone, he continued: "Your own heart is speaking for me. Have I not seen you tremble when I come near you?"
He rose and came forward a step or two. "You thought it was fear of me. It was fear, but fear of that in you which was pleading for me, while you had sworn yourself away to him who knows not and can never know how to love you, who has nothing kin with you in mind or heart—an alien of poor fortune, and poorer birth and prospects."
He fixed his eyes upon her, and went on, speaking with forceful quietness: "Had there been cut away that mistaken sense of duty to him, which I admire unspeakably—yes, though it is misplaced—you and I would have come to each other's arms long ago. Here in your atmosphere I feel myself possessed, endowed. I come close to you, and something new in me cries out simply, 'I love you, Alixe, I love you!' See, all the damnable part of me is burned up by the clear fire of your eyes; I stand upon the ashes, and swear that I can not live without you. Come—come—"
He stepped nearer still, and she rose like one who moves under some fascination, and I almost cried out, for in that moment she was his, his—I felt it; he possessed her like some spirit; and I understood it, for the devilish golden beauty of his voice was like music, and he had spoken with great skill.
"Come," he said, "and know where all along your love has lain. That other way is only darkness—the convent, which will keep you buried, while you will never have heart for the piteous seclusion, till your life is broken all to pieces; till you have no hope, no desire, no love, and at last, under a cowl, you look out upon the world, and, with a dead heart, see it as in a pale dream, and die at last: you, born to be a wife, without a husband; endowed to be the perfect mother, without a child; to be the admired of princes, a moving, powerful figure to influence great men, with no salon but the little bare cell where you pray. With me all that you should be you will be. You have had a bad, dark dream; wake, and come into the sun with me. Once I wished for you as the lover only; now, by every hope I ever might have had, I want you for my wife."
He held out his arms to her and smiled, and spoke one or two low words which I could not hear. I had stood waiting death against the citadel wall, with the chance of a reprieve hanging between uplifted muskets and my breast; but that suspense was less than this, for I saw him, not moving, but standing there waiting for her, the warmth of his devilish eloquence about him, and she moving toward him.
"My darling," I heard him say, "come, till death…us do part, and let no man put asunder."