“Mon Dieu!” she cried, wringing her hands, “it is horrible. Oh! You are not men, you Revolutionists. You are beasts of prey, tigers in human semblance.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Great injustices beget great reactions. Great wrongs can only be balanced by great wrongs. For centuries the power has lain with the aristocrats, and they have most foully abused it. For centuries the people of France have writhed beneath the armed heel of the nobility, and their blood, unjustly and wantonly shed, has saturated the soil until from that seed has sprung this overwhelming retribution. Now—now, when it is too late—you are repenting; now, when at last some twenty-five million Frenchmen have risen with weapons in their hands to purge the nation of you. We are no worse than were you; indeed, not so bad. It is only that we do in a little while—and, therefore, while it lasts in greater quantity—what you have been doing through countless generations.”
“Spare me these arguments, Monsieur,” she cried, recovering her spirit. “The 'whys' and 'wherefores' of it are nothing to me. I see what you are doing, and that is enough. But,” and her voice grew gentle and pleading, her hands were held out to him, “you are good at heart, Monsieur; you are generous and you can be noble. You will give me the life that I have come to beg of you; the life you promised me.”
“Yes, but upon terms, Mademoiselle, and those terms you have heard.”
She looked a moment into that calm, set face, into the dark grey eyes that looked so solemn and betrayed so little of what was passing within.
“And you say that you love me?” she cried.
“Helas!” he sighed. “It is a weakness I cannot conquer.
“Look well down into your heart, M. La Boulaye,” she answered him, “and you will find how egregious is your error. You do not love me; you love yourself, and only yourself. If you loved me you would not seek to have me when I am unwilling. Above all things, you would desire my happiness—it is ever so when we truly love—and you would seek to promote it. If, indeed, you loved me you would grant my prayer, and not torture me as you are doing. But since you only love yourself, you minister only to yourself, and seek to win me by force since you desire me.”
She ceased, and her eyes fell before his glance, which remained riveted upon her face. Immovable he stood a moment or two, then he turned from her with a little sigh, and leaning his elbow upon the window-sill, he gazed down into the crowds surging about the second tumbril. But although he saw much there that was calculated to compel attention, he heeded nothing. His thoughts were very busy, and he was doing what Mademoiselle had bidden him. He was looking into himself. And from that questioning he gathered not only that he loved her, but that he loved her so well and so truly that—in spite even of all that was passed—he must do her will, and deliver up to her the man she loved.