She gave him a glance of sublime abnegation.
"Nothing but your love!" she said gently. "I want nothing but that. What do I care for aught else?"
"But I care that the woman who has given up all for me should not sink in public opinion, and be scandalised."
"What will you do?"
"Give you my name, my child—the only property left me. At any rate, if you are the companion of a pirate," he said bitterly, "no one shall reproach you with being his mistress. In the eyes of the world, I swear it to you, you shall be his wedded wife."
"Oh!" she said, clasping her hands in mad delight.
"Good, brother!" Valentine said as he entered the hut. "I will take on myself to have your union blessed by a simple-hearted priest, to whom the Gospel is not a dead letter, and who understands Christianity in all its gentle and touching grandeur."
"Thanks, Don Valentine."
"Call me brother, madam; for I am so to you, as I am his brother. You are a noble creature, and I thank you for the love you bear Don Louis. And now," he added, with a smile, "there will be a struggle between us: there are two of us to love him."
The count, his eyes filled with tears, but not finding words to express all he felt, held out his hands to these two beings, who were so good and so devoted, with an emotion that came from the heart.