been
one long experience of peace and honesty, so that now she rebelled at
the thought of committing a fault and of thus fleeing in the arms of
her lover. Each day in this little, fresh house of the embroiderers,
the active and pure life she had led there, away from all worldly
temptations, had, as it were, made over all the blood in her veins.

Then Felicien, realising that in some inexplicable way Angelique was
being reconquered and brought to her better self, felt the necessity of
hastening their departure. He seized her hands and said:

"Come, dear. Time passes quickly. If we wait much longer it will be too
late."

She looked at him an instant, and then in a flash realised her true
position. Freeing herself from his grasp she exclaimed, resolutely and
frankly:

"It is already too late. You can see for yourself that I am unable now
to follow you. Once my nature was so proud and passionate that I could
have thrown my two arms around your neck in order that you might carry
me away all the more quickly. But now I am no longer the same person. I
am so changed that I do not recognise myself. Yes, I realise now that
it is this quiet corner where I have been brought up, and the education
that has been given me, that has made me what I am at present. Do you
then yourself hear nothing? Do you not know that everything in this
chamber calls upon me to stay? And I do not rebel in the least against
this demand, for my joy at last is to obey."

Without speaking, without attempting to discuss the question with her,
he tried to take her hands again, and to lead her like an intractable
child. Again she avoided him and turned slowly toward the window.

"No, I beseech you to leave me. It is not my hand that you wish for, it
is my heart; and also that, of my own free will, I shall at once go away
with you. But I tell you plainly that I do not wish to do so. A while
ago I thought to have been as eager for flight as you are. But sure of
my true self now, I know it was only the last rebellion, the agony of
the old nature within me, that has just died. Little by little, without
my knowledge, the good traits of my character have been drawn together
and strongly united: humility, duty, and renunciation. So at each return
of hereditary tendency to excess, the struggle has been less severe, and
I have triumphed over temptation more easily. Now, at last, everything
assures me that the supreme contest has just taken place; that
henceforth