And though she recognized him, she sought not to withdraw herself from the enclosure of his sheltering arms, but lay there on his bosom, with her head reclined on his shoulder, and her eyes drinking long draughts of love from his fascinated gaze, as if she were his own, and that her appropriate place of refuge and protection. "Oh! Raoul," she exclaimed, at length, in a low, soft whisper, "is it, indeed, you--you, whom I have so long wept as dead--you, whom I was even now weeping as one lost to me forever, when you are thus restored to me!" "It is I, Melanie," he answered mournfully, "it is I, alive, and in health; but better far had I been in truth dead, as they have told you, rather than thus a survivor of all happiness, of all hopes; spared only from the grave to know _you_ false, and myself forgotten." "Oh, no, Raoul, not false!" she cried wildly, as she started from his arms, "oh, not forgotten! think you," she added, blushing crimson, "that had I loved any but you, that had I not loved you with my whole heart and being, I had lain thus on your bosom, thus endured your caresses? Oh, no, no, never false! nor for one moment forgotten?" "But what avails it, if you do love no other--what profits it, if you do love me? Are you not--are you not, false girl,--alas! that these lips should speak it,--the wife of another--the promised mistress of the king?" "I--I--Raoul!" she exclaimed, with such a blending of wonder and loathing in her face, such an expression of indignation on her tongue, that her lover perceived at once, that, whatever might be the infamy of her father, of her husband, of this climax of falsehood and self-degradation, she, at least, was guiltless. "The mistress of the king! what king? what mean you? are you distraught?" "Ha! you are ignorant, you are innocent of that, then. You are not yet indoctrinated into the noble uses for which your honorable lord intends you. It is the town's talk, Melanie. How is it you, whom it most concerns, alone have not heard it?" "Raoul," she said, earnestly, imploringly, "I know not if there be any meaning in your words, except to punish me, to torture me, for what you deem my faithlessness, but if there be, I implore you, I conjure you, by your father's noble name; by your mother's honor, show me the worst; but listen to me first, for by the God that made us both, and now hears my words, I am not faithless." "Not faithless? Are you not the wife of another?" "No!" she replied enthusiastically. "I am not. For I am yours, and while you live I cannot wed another. Whom God hath joined man cannot put asunder." "I fear me that plea will avail us little," Raoul answered. "But say on, dearest Melanie, and believe that there is nothing you can ask which I will not give you gladly--even if it were my own life-blood. Say on, so shall we best arrive at the truth of this intricate and black affair."