"No: excuse me: an interview between me and him must be painful, and could not be beneficial. The letter I had from him to inform me of a certain mournful event was cold; and though I answered it kindly,--for I thought of you when I wrote,--I was convinced that the less we met again the better." "Then what can you do?" "I know not--I could not save my friend, you know." "If money can do it, I possess the means." "And so do I; but Robespierre is inaccessible to bribes, and so I have found his creatures. I fear that I must seek Madame Beauvais herself." "But she probably hates you?" "True: but she does not hate Pendarves; and if I convince her that her only chance of liberating him is by seeming to have ceased to love him, the business may be done." "And must he owe his liberty, and perhaps his life, to her? But be it so, if he can be preserved no other way--in that case I would even be a suitor to her myself." "That I could not bear. But oh! dear inconsiderate friend, why did you come hither?" "Because I thought it my duty." "And do you still think so?" I was silent. "Answer me: candid and generous Helen: do you not now see that it was more your duty to stay in your own safe country, protected by respectable friends, than to come hither courting danger, and the worst of dangers to a virtuous wife? Believe me, the passive virtue of painful but quiet endurance of injury was the virtue for you to practise. This quixotic daring looked like duty; but was not duty, Helen, and could only end in disappointment: for tell me, have you not found that you have thus suffered and thus dared for an ingrate?" My silence answered the question. "Enough!" resumed De Walden; "and I feel that I have been cruel; but mine has been the reproof of friendship, wrung from me by the indignant agony of knowing that even I cannot perhaps protect you from the insults which I dread. Oh! why did they let you come hither? I am sure your mind was not itself when you thought of it." "You are right. The idea had taken hold of my imagination then unnaturally raised, and come I would. But my physician approved my coming; for he thought it safer for me, and thought, if I was not indulged, that my reason, if not my life, might suffer." This statement completely overset De Walden's self-command; he blamed himself for what he had said--accused himself of cruelty--extolled the patient sweetness with which I had heard him, and had condescended to justify myself. Then, striking his forehead, he exclaimed, "And I, alas! am powerless to save a being like this! But save her, THOU," he added, lifting his clasped hands to heaven. The hour of my appointment at the prison now arrived again, and De Walden accompanied me thither. I did not see Benoit; but I was admitted directly, and my conductor, opening the door, said, "A female citizen desires to see you." "Indeed!" said Pendarves in a tone of joy; but he started, and looked disappointed, when he saw me.