We are bound to each other by sacred ties, and
the marriage law must have been made by those who forsaw that the
noblest and most generous of men might be wedded to the most guilty of
women, but that he would save her. Rescue me!" she cried, sinking upon
her knees.

"I am ready; what do you want?" he said in moved voice so that at last
she began to hope.

"Forget my faults and the wrong they have caused you. I want you to
forgive me everything up to the present minute--proudly hurl the past
into dead eternity and make all that ought not to have been like what
never was. Lastly, I crave for our departure for a change of sun and air
and sky, so that the woman I mean to become henceforward should never be
reminded for a single instant of the wretch that I was. Oh, let us live
no more but for each other--you entirely mine as I entirely your own!"

Almost carried away by the eloquent outburst, Clemenceau had but one
thought to cling to and hold him in the flood. His work of patriotism!

"Your work? well, there should be no work where love presides! after
all," she continued, rising and venturing to slide her arms upon his
shoulders, "you only toiled because you believed I did not love you. You
tried to become celebrated only because you were not happy. You were a
student when I opened the book of love to you and the little I showed
you to read gave you the yearning for more. Labor came after love. When
I caused you pain, you looked for consolation and you owe your genius to
me. Genius understands or divines everything, and knows what human
weakness is. Ah, if you had been weak and I mighty, how gladly I would
have pardoned you! Had you done any wrong--if you were wrung by remorse
like most of us--what joy to make you forget it. But no, you are honor
itself, and I lose all hope?"

"Poor creature!" sighed he, but still like marble though her arms
enfolded him and palpitate warm unlike serpents whose coils their curves
resembled.

"You pity me?" she murmured coaxingly, although he did not thaw under
her tightening clasp; "then, you agree?"

He shook his head. As usual, when perversity defends, the pleading
reached the judge too late. Her pressure became irksome, he thought of
the devilfish tightening its rings till fatal, and, by an effort,
irresistible while gentle, he disengaged himself from her arms. They
dropped inert by her panting sides as if broken. But only for an instant
her defeat overpowered her.

"I see,"