“How your heart beats!” she said at last, smiling up at me. “It is just here, under my ear.” “For you, dear life! Every beat of it!” “And mine for you,” she said. “Every beat of it!” I looked up at the bright heavens--away at the distant hills. “What is it?” she asked. “That it should be true!” I said. “I have dreamed of it--longed for it--but that it should be true!” “It has been true a long time,” she answered softly,--“a long time, dearest Paul.” Her voice lingered on the name. It was the first that I had heard it from her lips. “But not so long as I,” I protested. “I have loved you from the moment I saw you in the Rue Gogard. And you?” She was smiling up at me with infinite tenderness. “I have thought of no other man since then,” she said. Again I looked out over the plain. This time the gleam of the camp-fires caught my eyes, and with a start I remembered my errand. “Sweetheart,” I said, summoning all my courage, “we must go down. M. le Comte awaits us. I pledged him I would hasten. M. le Roquefort may even now be dead. He loves you, I think, but not as I!” “No, not as you!” She was looking up into my eyes, radiant with love and happiness. Never was there other woman like her! Yet we lingered for a time, as our parents must have lingered at the gate of Eden. But at last we reached the plain, and made our way to the camp and to the tent of M. le Comte. They were awaiting us. Roquefort seemed much stronger. He was supported on a pile of pillows, and but for the fever-glare in his eyes would not have appeared ill. The eyes brightened as we entered and a vivid flush sprang to either cheek. “Come hither, Claire!” he cried, and she went to him, glorious in her loveliness. Even he seemed startled by it, and gazed at her a moment without speaking. “I have come to the end of the path, Claire,” he said at last. “They tell me I may live a day, perhaps--no longer. And before the end I am going to ask you to keep a pledge you made me. See, I have kept mine”--and he made a little gesture towards me--“so far as with me lay.” Not till then did I understand, and my heart grew cold at thought of it. “You know I have loved you, Claire,” he went on, looking up into her eyes. “Nay, do not speak--do not protest! I have loved you! Had I not--had I not hungered for your love in return--I should have made you mine long ere this. But now, at the end, you must be mine! You have already promised, Claire! You cannot break your promise to a dying man!” He paused--a cough choked him--and again there was blood upon his lips. I trembled to hurl myself upon him--to drag her away--but what could I say?--what plea could I offer? Oh, why did not she herself answer him? But she did not answer--she did not draw away, as I, who stood there with starting eyes, watching her every movement, thought she must. She only knelt with her face buried in the cushions, shaken by sobs. But pity could go too far!