"What is the true Paragot, Master?" I asked.
"There are only two that know it—Blanquette and the bon Dieu. I don't."
"I only know," said I, "that I owe my life to you and that I love you more than any one else in the world."
"Even more than Mme. de Verneuil?" he asked with a smile.
I blushed. "She is different," said I.
"Quite different," he assented, after a long pause. "My son," he added, "it is right that you should know why the end came. One generally keeps these things to oneself—but I see you are blaming me, and a barrier may grow up between us which we should both regret. You think I have treated your dear lady most cruelly?"
"I can't judge you, Master," said I, terribly embarrassed.
"But you do," said he.
Paragot was in one of his rare gentle moods. He spoke softly, without a trace of reproach or irony. He spoke, too, lying pipe in mouth on the old rep sofa, instead of walking about the room. He told me his story. Need I repeat it?
They had escaped a life-long misery, but on the other hand they had lost a life-long dream. She was still in his eyes all that is beautiful and exquisite in woman; but she was not the woman that Berzélius Nibbidard Paragot could love. The twain had been romantic, walking in the Valley of Illusion, wilfully blinding their eyes to the irony of Things Real. Love had flown far from them during the silent years and they had mistaken the afterglow of his wings for the living radiance. They had begun to realise the desolate truth. They read it in each other's eyes. She had been too loyal to speak. She would have married him, hoping as a woman hopes, against hope. Paragot, whose soul revolted from pretence, preferring real mire to sham down, fled from the piteous tragedy.