“If you love me,” he said, “you must obey me and save your life. Believe me, it is a hundred times more painful for me to die with you than to die alone. If I know that you are free and alive, death will be sweet to me.”
She did not listen and continued her confession, happy in making it, happy in uttering words which she had kept to herself so long:
“I have loved you, Patrice, from the first day I saw you. I knew it without your telling me; and my only reason for not telling you earlier was that I was waiting for a solemn occasion, for a time when it would be a glory to tell you so, while I looked into the depths of your eyes and offered myself to you entirely. As I have had to speak on the brink of the grave, listen to me and do not force upon me a separation which would be worse than death.”
“No, no,” he said, striving to release himself, “it is your duty to go.”
He made another effort and caught hold of her hands:
“It is your duty to go,” he whispered, “and, when you are free, to do all that you can to save me.”
“What are you saying, Patrice?”
“Yes,” he repeated, “to save me. There is no reason why you should not escape from that scoundrel’s clutches, report him, seek assistance, warn our friends. You can call out, you can play some trick. . . .”
She looked at him with so sad a smile and such a doubting expression that he stopped speaking.
“You are trying to mislead me, my poor darling,” she said, “but you are no more taken in by what you say than I am. No, Patrice, you well know that, if I surrender myself to that man, he will reduce me to silence or imprison me in some hiding-place, bound hand and foot, until you have drawn your last breath.”