“Then,” said Madame Graslin, “if a poor young man, a tender soul, carried away by passion, having committed a murder, was spared from death and sent to the galleys—”
“Oh! madame,” said Farrabesche, interrupting her, “there is no sparing in that. The sentence may be commuted to twenty years at the galleys, but for a decent young man, that is awful! I could not speak to you of the life that awaits him there; a thousand times better die. Yes, to die upon the scaffold is happiness in comparison.”
“I dared not think it,” murmured Madame Graslin.
She had turned as white as wax. To hide her face she laid her forehead on the balustrade, and kept it there several minutes. Farrabesche did not know whether he ought to go or remain.
Madame Graslin raised her head at last, looked at Farrabesche with an almost majestic air, and said, to his amazement, in a voice that stirred his heart:—
“Thank you, my friend. But,” she added, after a pause, “where did you find courage to live and suffer?”
“Ah! madame, Monsieur Bonnet put a treasure within my soul! and for that I love him better than all else on earth.”
“Better than Catherine?” said Madame Graslin, smiling with a sort of bitterness.
“Almost as well, madame.”
“How did he do it?”