"Monsieur de Champcey," she said, in a cold, hard voice, "were there any scoundrels in your family before you?"
"Marguerite!" I cried.
"You paid that boy to lock us in," she exclaimed. "You think you will force me to marry you by compromising me in this manner. Do you think you will win my hand--and, what is more important to you still, my wretched wealth--by this trick? Rather than marry a scoundrel like you, I will shut myself up in a convent!"
Carried away by my feelings, I seized her two hands, and said, "Now listen, Marguerite. I love you, it is true. Never did man love more devotedly, yes, and more disinterestedly, than I do. But I swear that if I get out of this place alive I will never marry you until you are as poor as I am, or I as rich as you are. If you love me, as I think you do, fall on your knees and pray, for unless a miracle happens you will never see me again alive."
But a miracle did happen. I threw myself out of the window, and fell upon a branch of an oak-tree. It bent beneath my weight, and then broke; but it came so near the earth before breaking that if my left arm had not struck against the masonry I should have escaped uninjured. As it was, my arm was smashed, and I swooned away with the pain. When I came to, Marguerite was leaning out of the window, calling, "Maxime, speak to me! For the love of heaven, speak to me, and say you pardon me!"
I arose, saying, "I am not hurt. If you will only wait another hour, I will go home and get some one to let you out. Believe me, I will save your honour as I have saved my own."
Binding up my arm, I got on my horse, and galloped back to Laroque Castle. On the way I met Bévallan.
"Have you seen Mlle. Marguerite?" he said. "We are afraid she has got lost."
"I met her this afternoon," I replied. "She told me she was going for a ride to Elven Castle."
He rode off in the direction from which I had come, and when I returned from the doctor with my broken arm set and bandaged, Marguerite and Bévallan entered.