"What would you do with it?"
"I would overtake Mademoiselle Deshoulieres."
"You might overtake her, but you couldn't turn her."
"For mercy's sake, madam, a horse! Take pity on my misery."
The Duchess ordered a horse to be saddled, for she had opposed
Daphnè's design. "Go," she said, "and Heaven guide you both!"
He started at full gallop: he overtook the carriage in half an hour.
"Daphnè, you must go no further!" he said, holding out his hand to the melancholy girl.
"'Tis you!" cried Daphnè, with a look of surprise and joy—soon succeeded by deeper grief than ever.
"Yes, 'tis I! I," continued the youth, "who love you as my Daphnè, my wife, for my father has listened at last to reason, and agrees to all."
"But I also have listened to reason, and you know where I am going. Leave me: you are rich—I am poor: you love me to-day—who can say if you will love me to-morrow? We began a delightful dream, let us not spoil it by a bad ending. Let our dream continue unbroken in its freshness and romance. Our crooks are both broken; they have killed two of our sheep; they have cut down the willows in the meadow. You perceive that our bright day is over. The lady I saw yesterday should be your wife. Marry her, then; and if ever, in your hours of happiness, you wander on the banks of the Lignon, my shade will appear to you. But then it shall be with a smile!"