"No, Julien, you cannot die! think of your mother!" "Why, my mother will die with us; what do you expect me to say to you? She would have liked to die on the day she lost my father; she said so unconsciously in her first frenzy; and since then, I have fully realized that she has lived only for me. We will all three go together, since we have but one soul between us, and we will go to a world where the purest love will not be a crime. There must be such a world for those who have never been able to understand the wicked prejudices of this one. Let us die, Julie, without remorse or vain regret. Give me your breath, give me your fever, give me your sickness; I swear that I will not survive you!" "Alas!" said Julie, unable to restrain that outcry of nature; "I might have been cured!" "What do you mean?" cried Julien, beside himself. "Have you taken poison? Answer, tell me! I insist upon knowing!" "No, no, I have not!" she replied, dragging him away with a sudden, desperate movement which made a profound impression on him. She had been leaning over the water, she had seen therein the reflection of her face and her white dress; she had remembered that, an hour later, she must be lying there motionless, dead; she had sworn it. That was the price of her broken oath, that was the price of Julien's happiness; a ghastly fear of death had made her shudder and start back. "What are you afraid of?" he asked her; "what did you see in the water? what were you thinking about? what made you fly? Ah! I can guess, you intend to die soon, immediately, as soon as I have gone! But I say that it shall not be; you are my wife. Since you still love me, you belong to me; I don't know what oath you have taken, I don't know what constraint has been put upon you; but I, your lover, your husband, your master, release you from everything! I will carry you off by force; no, I will take you with me, that is my right. I do not propose that you shall die, and I propose that my mother shall live to bless you. I have strength for us both; I don't know what sort of a battle I shall have to fight, but I will fight it. Come, let us go! If you haven't strength to walk, I have strength to carry you. Come, I insist! the time has come for you to acknowledge no other power over your life than mine." As, while leading her back to the pavilion, he led her in the direction of the basin, the combat between remorse and love in her heart became so violent that she uttered a cry of horror, and, clinging to him with all her strength, she said: "I pledged my word of honor to leave you, and I am breaking my pledge and reducing your mother to want! Can you relieve me from that burden?"