"My friend," she said, "carry me away this very night. Bear me to some
place where no one can answer: 'There is a girl with a golden gaze here,
who has long hair.' Yonder I will give thee as many pleasures as thou
wouldst have of me. Then when you love me no longer, you shall leave me,
I shall not complain, I shall say nothing; and your desertion need cause
you no remorse, for one day passed with you, only one day, in which I
have had you before my eyes, will be worth all my life to me. But if I
stay here, I am lost."

"I cannot leave Paris, little one!" replied Henri. "I do not belong to
myself, I am bound by a vow to the fortune of several persons who stand
to me, as I do to them. But I can place you in a refuge in Paris, where
no human power can reach you."

"No," she said, "you forget the power of woman."

Never did phrase uttered by human voice express terror more absolutely.

"What could reach you, then, if I put myself between you and the world?"

"Poison!" she said. "Dona Concha suspects you already... and," she
resumed, letting the tears fall and glisten on her cheeks, "it is easy
enough to see I am no longer the same. Well, if you abandon me to the
fury of the monster who will destroy me, your holy will be done! But
come, let there be all the pleasures of life in our love. Besides, I
will implore, I will weep and cry out and defend myself; perhaps I shall
be saved."

"Whom will your implore?" he asked.

"Silence!" said Paquita. "If I obtain mercy it will perhaps be on
account of my discretion."

"Give me my robe," said Henri, insidiously.

"No, no!" she answered quickly, "be what you are, one of those angels
whom I have been taught to hate, and in whom I only saw ogres, whilst
you are what is fairest under the skies," she said, caressing Henri's
hair. "You do not know how silly I am. I have learned nothing. Since I
was twelve years old I have been shut up without ever seeing any one. I
can neither read nor write, I can only speak English and Spanish."

"How is it, then, that you receive letters from London?"

"My letters?... See, here they are!" she said, proceeding to take some
papers out of a tall Japanese vase.

She offered De Marsay some letters, in which the young man saw, with
surprise, strange figures, similar to those of a rebus, traced in blood,
and illustrating phrases full of passion.

"But," he cried, marveling at these hieroglyphics created by the
alertness of jealousy, "you are in