"You have betrayed our love," whispered Madame von Brandt, as she glanced tenderly at the count.
"What! our love?" he cried, beside himself with delight; "you admit that it is not I alone who love?"
"I admit it, but at the same time declare that we must part."
"Never! no, never! No power on earth shall part us," said he, seizing her hand, and covering it with kisses.
"But there is a power which has the right to separate us—the power of my husband. He already suspects my feelings for you, and he will be inexorable if he discovers that his suspicions are correct."
"Then I will call him out, and he will fall by my hand, and I shall bear you in triumph as my wife to my castle."
"But if you should fall?"
"Ah! I had not thought of that," murmured the count, turning pale. "That would be certainly a most unhappy accident. We will not tempt fate with this trial, but seek another way out of our difficulty. Ah, I know one already. You must elope with me."
She said, with a sad smile, "The arm of the king extends far and wide, and my husband would follow us with his vengeance to the end of the world."
"But what shall we do?" cried the count, despairingly; "we love each other; separated, we must be consumed with grief and sorrow. Ah! ah! shall I really suffer the fate of Petrarch, and pass my life in an eternal dirge? Is there no way to prevent this?"