He has sent my trunks to Nantes, where a ship is loading for San
Domingo. In five days, Eugenie, we must bid each other farewell--perhaps
forever, at least for years. My outfit and ten thousand francs, which
two of my friends send me, are a very small beginning. I cannot look to
return for many years. My dear cousin, do not weight your life in the
scales with mine; I may perish; some good marriage may be offered to
you--"

"Do you love me?" she said.

"Oh, yes! indeed, yes!" he answered, with a depth of tone that revealed
an equal depth of feeling.

"I shall wait, Charles--Good heavens! there is my father at his window,"
she said, repulsing her cousin, who leaned forward to kiss her.

She ran quickly under the archway. Charles followed her. When she
saw him, she retreated to the foot of the staircase and opened the
swing-door; then, scarcely knowing where she was going, Eugenie reached
the corner near Nanon's den, in the darkest end of the passage. There
Charles caught her hand and drew her to his heart. Passing his arm about
her waist, he made her lean gently upon him. Eugenie no longer resisted;
she received and gave the purest, the sweetest, and yet, withal, the
most unreserved of kisses.

"Dear Eugenie, a cousin is better than a brother, for he can marry you,"
said Charles.

"So be it!" cried Nanon, opening the door of her lair.

The two lovers, alarmed, fled into the hall, where Eugenie took up her
work and Charles began to read the litanies of the Virgin in Madame
Grandet's prayer-book.

"Mercy!" cried Nanon, "now they're saying their prayers."

As soon as Charles announced his immediate departure, Grandet bestirred
himself to testify much interest in his nephew. He became very liberal
of all that cost him nothing; took pains to find a packer; declared the
man asked too much for his cases; insisted on making them himself out
of old planks; got up early in the morning to fit and plane and nail
together the strips, out of which he made, to his own satisfaction, some
strong cases, in which he packed all Charles's effects; he also took
upon himself to send them by boat down the Loire, to insure them, and
get them to Nantes in proper time.

After the kiss taken in the passage, the hours fled for Eugenie with
frightful rapidity. Sometimes she thought of following her cousin.
Those who have known that most endearing of all passions,--the one whose
duration is each day shortened by time, by age, by mortal illn