Merlin.
The proof is grave and sad; I would have liked to spare you.... But you know better than I that there are salutary sufferings, before which it is shameful to fly.... A sign will be enough to overturn a world.... A little movement of that neck which as yet bends without anxiety, a single glance of those eyes, too confident and too full of innocence, will destroy before my sight the most beautiful thing that love has created in a woman's heart.... And yet, it must be.... It is right, it is well that this thing should to-day be lost in tears which it may yet be possible to wipe away; for later it would have had to sink in sorrows which nothing could have consoled....
Joyzelle.
What do you mean?...
Merlin.
That, at this very moment, when all that is spotless and true, limpid and ardent in your heart, when all the transparent virtues of your soul, all the faithfulness, all the loyalty and all the innocence of your virgin blood mount up towards him whom you had selected to make of him the purest, the happiest of men, he is there, behind us, at two steps from this bank, sheltered by those leaves which he thinks impenetrable, in the arms of the woman with whom, the other day, as you yourself saw, he profaned the marvellous love which you have given him!...
Joyzelle.
No.
Merlin.
Why do you say no, without looking?...