sked myself the
question without being able to reply to it. But we love each other, and
if it is a crime to do so, pardon it, I beseech you, for it came from
afar, from everything in short that surrounded us. When I realised that
I loved him, it was already too late to prevent it. Now, is it possible
to be angry on that account? You can keep him with you, make him marry
some other person, but you cannot prevent him from giving me his heart.
He will die without me, as I shall if obliged to part from him. When
he is not by my side I feel that he is really near me, and that we will
never be entirely separated, since we carry each other's life with us.
I have only to close my eyes to re-see him when I wish, so firmly is his
image impressed upon my soul. Our whole natures are thus closely united
for life. And could you wish to draw us away from this union? Oh!
Monseigneur, it is divine; do not try to prevent us loving each other!"

He looked at her in her simple working-dress, so fresh, so unpretending,
and attractive. He listened to her as she repeated the canticle of their
love in a voice that both fascinated and troubled him, and which grew
stronger by degrees. But as her garden-hat fell upon her shoulders, her
exquisite hair seemed to make a halo around her head of fine gold, and
she appeared to him, indeed, like one of those legendary virgins of the
old prayer-books, so frail was she, so primitive, so absorbed in her
deep feeling of intense and pure affection.

"Be good, be merciful, Monseigneur. You are the master. Do allow us to
be happy!"

She implored him, and finding that he remained unmoved, without
speaking, she again bowed down her head.

Oh! this unhappy child at his feet; this odour of youth that came up
from the sweet figure thus bent before him! There he saw, as it were
again, the beautiful light locks he had so fondly caressed in the days
gone by. She, whose memory still distressed him after twenty years of
penitence, had the same fresh youthfulness, the same proud expression,
and the same lily-like grace. She had re-appeared; it was she herself
who now sobbed and besought him to be tender and merciful.

Tears had come to Angelique, yet she continued to outpour her heart.

"And, Monseigneur, it is not only that I love him, but I also love the
nobility of his name, the lustre of his royal fortune. Yes, I know well
that being nothing, that having nothing, it seems as if I were only
desirous of his money