"He scolded me, but very gently. He told me that I did wrong to love Edouard; that I must forget him, give up all hope of him; that he would never be my husband."
"I was sure of it! It was not for others that he brought you up in secret, that he attended to your education. No! he was acting for himself! Ah! he must love you dearly, to do as he has done. And I have deprived him of your presence, your caresses; I have wrecked all his plans of happiness for the future. So I am revenged at last!"
A ferocious smile lighted up the vagabond’s features. Isaure looked away in terror. After a few moments he said to her:
"Do not think that it was for the sole purpose of doing evil that I took you away from your home; I have had many failings, vices even, but to do evil for the sole purpose of doing it never occurred to me; and although I have many reasons for detesting men, I do them justice enough to believe that they would rarely be wicked if they did not find some advantage in it. Listen to me, my girl; I am going to tell you why I stole you from your protector. I am aware that I owe you no account of my acts, and that I am at perfect liberty to withhold this confidence from you; but your mildness, your submission, arouse my interest. Yes, the more I see you, the better I know you, the more you astonish me; I am making you unhappy, I know; and yet I would like to see you happy. What a strange effect is produced by beauty combined with kindness of heart and virtue! I believed that those things could never touch my heart again, but you prove to me that I was mistaken."
Isaure raised her eyes to the vagabond’s face; they wore an indescribable expression as she said to him:
"Ah! monsieur, I, too, feel that I would be glad to like you, even though you make me so unhappy; I cannot hate you as I should!"
"Nonsense! hush, my girl, and do not look at me like that," replied the vagabond, turning his face away to conceal his emotions. "Yes, I am pleased with your submission, but your fate will be the same, nevertheless, because it cannot be otherwise; and notwithstanding the interest you arouse in me, I would strike you dead if I saw the Baron de Marcey on the point of rescuing you from my hands. Do not be so alarmed; that can never be; you see that I have taken my precautions too well for that. Let us return to what I was about to tell you,—my reasons for my conduct; and since destiny has united us forever, learn to know the man with whom you are to pass the rest of your life.
"I was not born in poverty, as you must have surmised. My youth was passed in a château; my early days were lived in the lap of luxury, surrounded by numerous servants whose only desire was to anticipate all my wishes. What a change! and ought I to have expected to end in this wretched plight? However, man ought to expect everything, when he is unable to overcome his vices and to resist his passions. But I verily believe that misfortune has taught me to indulge in moral reflections. Of all the changes it has wrought in me, that is not the least surprising!"
The vagabond was silent for some moments; he had taken out his pipe, which he filled and lighted, then he resumed his discourse, interrupting it only to take his pipe out of his mouth from time to time.
"The two young men who came to see you so often were staying at the Château de la Roche-Noire, two leagues from your house; they probably told you so?"