“Happiness! Do you think there can be happiness when there will be nothing but useless regrets for the past that can never be undone. With time you will realize all this. You will hate and despise me.”
“Marie!”
“Yes, hate and despise me for what I am. And I—even now I hate—I despise myself.”
“Marie! What new madness is this? Surely you do not doubt me? I love you and you only. Far away from France what shall we care of babblers who talk? What is the world to us who are all in all to each other?” And in my eagerness I placed my hand on her arm.
“Yes, all in all in sin, and we cannot go away from ourselves. Don’t touch me now. I must say what I came to tell you. Monsieur, I will save you from yourself—I must save myself too!” And then, with pitiful entreaty in her voice, “Oh, Vibrac! Give me strength. Help me a little!”
“I—I do not understand,” I stammered, though I knew well what she meant.
“You do not understand? You must. Oh, Vibrac! Do you not see that in a moment of wicked folly we resolved to take a step from which there can be no withdrawal. Oh! I do not blame you. It was my fault to have listened to you, to have led you on unwittingly—and you are but a boy still! But I want you to be a brave man. Banish me from your thoughts! I am not what you think—but, God knows, I am not a bad woman—and there is time yet to draw back—to save myself and you.”
“You would desert me?” I asked bitterly, a dull despair in my heart.
“No!” she answered, the low, rich tones of her voice vibrating through the night. “I would stand by you and recall you to your strength. God would desert us if we did this thing.”
“We should have thought of that before—it is too late now.”