"Because, if you give me up, I shall die," she said. "I should have died, I think, if I had not seen you to-night. Now they may say and do what they please." "What have they been saying and doing? Ah, my sweet, how have they been tormenting you? You are no happier than when I saw you first, though I love you so. How you tremble! Sit down here--there, softly--you are quite safe. What in God's name are we to do? Must I leave you again with these people?" For a few minutes they sat in a corner of an old carved bench under the window, one of the family seats in those more religious days when grandfathers and grandmothers came to the chapel to pray. Hélène leaned against Angelot, clinging to him, and past his dark profile, dimly visible in the twilight of stars, she could see the roughly carved and painted figure of Our Lady, brought from a Spanish convent and much venerated by that Mademoiselle de Sainfoy who became a Carmelite in the early days of the order. Hélène had fancied, before now, that there was something motherly in the smile of the statue, neglected so long. She thought, even as her lover kissed her, that neither the Blessed Virgin, nor St. Theresa, nor the ancestor who was her disciple, would have been angry with her and Angelot. Only her own mother, and she for worldly reasons alone, would find any sin in this sweet human love which wrapped her round, which, if allowed to have its way, would shield her from all the miseries of life and keep her in the rapturous peace she enjoyed in this moment, this fleeting moment, which she could not spoil even by telling her Angelot why she sent for him. "Ah, how I wanted you!" she breathed in his ear. "My love! But what--what are we to do!" he murmured passionately; her feelings of rest and peace and safety were not for him. "Your father is very good, and loves you," he said. "At least we know that he will not have you sacrificed. I will ask him. If he refuses--then, mille tonnerres, I will carry you off into the woods, Hélène." "It is no use asking him, dearest, none," she said. "Besides, you told them all that you did not care for me." She lifted her head, and tried to look into his face. "Ah, did they tell you that? Was that why you were angry?" Angelot cried. "Yes," she said; "and now you had better ask to be forgiven."