"Nay, Madame, not that, save as a last resort!"
"Alas, I may not though I would. Do you think I should hesitate if I were free? How gladly I would bury myself from this world, give myself at once to Heaven! But that resource—that happiness—is forbidden me. My mother, as she neared death, saw no security for me but as a life-guest at a convent. Our small fortune barely sufficed to make the provision. But she did not wish me to become a nun, and as she feared the influence of the convent might lead that way, she put me under a promise never to take the veil. So I am without the one natural resource of a woman in my position."
"But do you mean that you will not be safe at the convent merely as a guest?"
"The Count may claim the fulfilment of his rights as a husband. He may use force to take me away. The Mother Superior cannot withhold me from him; and indeed I fear she would be little inclined to if she could, unless I consented to take the veil. Before the possibility of my marriage came up, she was always urging me to apply for a remission of the vow to my mother, so that I might become a nun. But that I would never do."
"But, Madame, knowing all this, how could you select the convent as your refuge, and let me bring you so far toward it?"
"Ah, Monsieur, what place in the world was there for me? And yet I had to go somewhere, that your life might be saved, and Mathilde's, and the happiness of poor Hugues. There was no other way to draw you far from that chateau of murder, no other way to detach Mathilde from one who could bring her nothing but calamity. And to-day, when I left you, I thought all this was accomplished, and I was free to go my way in search of death."
"Oh, Madame, if I had known what was in your mind! Then you did not mean to go to the convent?"
"I meant to go toward the convent. It is further away than I allowed you to suppose. I felt—I know not why—that death would meet me on the way. I felt in my heart a promise that God would do me that kindness. At first I had no idea of what form my deliverer would take. Perhaps, I thought, I might be permitted to lose my way in the forest and die of hunger, or perhaps I might encounter some wild beast, or a storm might arise and cause me to be struck by lightning or a falling bough, or I might be so chilled and weakened by rain that I must needs lie down and die. I knew not what shape,—all I felt was, that it waited for me in the forest. And when the gentleman spoke of robbers, I rejoiced, for it seemed to confirm my belief."
"And that is why you would not let me come with you?"
"Yes, certainly; that you might not be present to drive death away from me, or meet it with me. I hoped you would go on to Paris, thinking me safe, and that you would soon forget me. You see how I desire you to live, and how you can please me only by doing so."