“Ah, hush!” said Luc sadly, yet serenely. “Look at me, Monseigneur—look at me—think of her—of any woman. I have known a long while that it could never be. Surely neither you nor she think I would ask this sacrifice?”
“This is not the language of love,” said the Marquis firmly. “Do you not recall how she wished to prove herself? how she wished to show what her affection meant?”
Luc did remember, with a swift, sharp sense of longing and regret, the brief days he had spent with his promised wife—her vows—her devotion.
“God bless her for her brave loyalty,” he said unsteadily; “but my life is too broken now ever to be joined to another. She is a sweet woman. I hope she will find great happiness.”
“With you, Luc, with you,” cried the Marquis vehemently. “She is waiting for you; she is constant to you. Do not cast away the best thing left to you.”
“My father,” cried Luc, “do not you tempt me! I have faced it all. I counted the cost that night I rode here. I knew then I had lost her. Do not speak of it.”
Something in his quivering tone quelled the old man.
“You will at least see her?” he asked humbly, in the wild hope that Clémence’s pity and generous tenderness might overcome his son’s resolution. “She looks upon you as her future husband.”
“I will see her,” answered Luc, and his scarred face flushed dully. “I fear I have given her some pain—and you, and my mother, Monseigneur. I must adjust it all as best I may.”
And while he spoke he was thinking, “She left no message. I wonder if she spoke of me, or thought of me at all?”