‘Hush, Mademoiselle, hush!’ I said, almost roughly. ‘You hurt me. You have made me happy; and yet I wish that you were not here, where, I fear, you have few friends, but back at Cocheforet. You have done more for me than I expected, and a hundred times more than I deserved. But it must end here. I was a ruined man before this happened, before I ever saw you. I am no worse now, but I am still that; and I would not have your name pinned to mine on Paris lips. Therefore, good-bye. God forbid I should say more to you, or let you stay where foul tongues would soon malign you.’
She looked at me in a kind of wonder; then, with a growing smile,—
‘It is too late,’ she said gently.
‘Too late?’ I exclaimed. ‘How, Mademoiselle?’
‘Because—do you remember, M. de Berault, what you told me of your love-story under the guide-post by Agen? That it could have no happy ending? For the same reason I was not ashamed to tell mine to the Cardinal. By this time it is common property.’
I looked at her as she stood facing me. Her eyes shone under the lashes that almost hid them. Her figure drooped, and yet a smile trembled on her lips.
‘What did you tell him, Mademoiselle?’ I whispered, my breath coming quickly.
‘That I loved,’ she answered boldly, raising her clear eyes to mine. ‘And therefore that I was not ashamed to beg—even on my knees.’
I fell on mine, and caught her hand before the last word passed her lips. For the moment I forgot King and Cardinal, prison and the future, all; all except that this woman, so pure and so beautiful, so far above me in all things, loved me. For the moment, I say. Then I remembered myself. I stood up, and stood back from her in a sudden revulsion of feeling.
‘You do not know me!’ I cried, ‘You do not know what I have done!’