“Forgive me that. See! I am on my knees to you. Am I not humbled enough? Have I not suffered enough for the wrong I may have done you?”
“It would take the sufferings of a generation to atone for the wrongs I have endured at the hands of your family, Citoyenne.”
“I will do what you will, Monsieur. Bethink you that I am pleading for the life of the man I am to marry.”
He looked down upon her now in an emotion that in its way was as powerful as her own. Yet his voice was hard and sternly governed as he now asked her,
“Is that an argument, Mademoiselle? Is it an argument likely to prevail with the man who, for his twice-confessed love of you, has suffered sore trials?”
He felt that in a way she had conquered him; his career, which but that day had seemed all-sufficing to him, was now fallen into the limbo of disregard. The one thing whose possession would render his life a happy one, whose absence would leave him now a lasting unhappiness, knelt here at his feet. Forgotten were the wrongs he had suffered, forgotten the purpose to humble and to punish. Everything was forgotten and silenced by the compelling voice of his blood, which cried out that he loved her. He stooped to her and caught her wrists in a grip that made her wince. His voice grew tense.
“If you would bribe me to save his life, Suzanne, there is but one price that you can pay.”
“And that?” she gasped her eyes looking up with a scared expression into his masterful face.
“Yourself,” he whispered, with an ardour that almost amounted to fierceness.
She gazed a second at him in growing alarm, then she dragged her hands from his grasp, and covering her face she fell a-sobbing.