The General could not trust himself to look at her. The stranger came nearer; there was something half-diabolical, half-divine in the smile that he gave Hélène.
“Angel of pity, you that do not shrink in horror from a murderer, come, since you persist in your resolution of intrusting your life to me.”
“Inconceivable!” cried her father.
The Marquise then looked strangely at her daughter, opened her arms, and Hélène fled to her in tears.
“Farewell,” she said, “farewell, mother!” The stranger trembled as Hélène, undaunted, made sign to him that she was ready. She kissed her father’s hand; and, as if performing a duty, gave a hasty kiss to Moïna and little Abel, then she vanished with the murderer.
“Which way are they going?” exclaimed the General, listening to the footsteps of the two fugitives.—“Madame,” he turned to his wife, “I think I must be dreaming; there is some mystery behind all this, I do not understand it; you must know what it means.”
The Marquise shivered.
“For some time past your daughter has grown extraordinarily romantic and strangely high-flown in her ideas. In spite of the pains I have taken to combat these tendencies in her character—”
“This will not do——” began the General, but fancying that he heard footsteps in the garden, he broke off to fling open the window.
“Hélène!” he shouted.