“No, no, Jules!” she cried. “If you love me no longer I shall die. Do you wish to know all?”
“Yes.”
He took her, grasped her violently, and sat down on the edge of the bed, holding her between his legs. Then, looking at that beautiful face now red as fire and furrowed with tears,—
“Speak,” he said.
Her sobs began again.
“No; it is a secret of life and death. If I tell it, I—No, I cannot. Have mercy, Jules!”
“You have betrayed me—”
“Ah! Jules, you think so now, but soon you will know all.”
“But this Ferragus, this convict whom you go to see, a man enriched by crime, if he does not belong to you, if you do not belong to him—”
“Oh, Jules!”