id, kissing her, "is not there. At the present moment
there is no question either of him or of you. We have brought down a
dozen gendarmes, that is all. Victory, as usual, is declaring for us.
So, don't trouble yourself any more about your father; and I, I won't
trouble myself further about the King's men. Let us live in peace and
rejoice in love."

With these words I raised to my lips a goblet of wine which had been
left on the table. But she took it out of my hands with an air of
authority that made me all the bolder.

"Don't drink any more," she said; "think seriously of what you are
saying. Is what you tell me true? Will you answer for it on your honour,
on the soul of your mother?"

"Every word is true; I swear it by your pretty rosy lips," I replied,
trying to kiss her again.

But she drew back in terror.

"Oh, mon Dieu!" she exclaimed, "he is drunk! Bernard! Bernard! remember
what you promised; do not break your word. You have not forgotten, have
you, that I am your kinswoman, your sister?"

"You are my mistress or my wife," I answered, still pursuing her.

"You are a contemptible creature!" she rejoined, repulsing me with her
riding whip. "What have you done that I should be aught to you? Have you
helped my father?"

"I swore to help him; and I would have helped him if he had been there;
it is just the same, therefore, as if I really had. But, had he been
there, and had I tried to save him and failed, do you know that for
this treachery Roche-Mauprat could not have provided any instrument of
torture cruel enough and slow enough to drag the life out of me inch by
inch? For all I know, they may actually have heard my vow; I proclaimed
it loudly enough. But what do I care? I set little store by a couple of
days more or less of life. But I do set some store by your favour, my
beauty. I don't want to be the languishing knight that every one laughs
at. Come, now, love me at once; or, my word, I will return to the fight,
and if I am killed, so much the worse for you. You will no longer have
a knight to help you, and you will still have seven Mauprats to keep at
bay. I'm afraid you are not strong enough for that rough work, my pretty
little love-bird."

These words, which I threw out at random, merely to distract her
attention so that I might seize her hands or her waist, made a deep
impression on her. She fled to the other end of the hall, and tried
to force open the window; but her little hands could not ev