"I tell you, girl, it is a compact--a base, hellish compact--with the foul despot, the disgrace of kings, the opprobrium of France, who sits upon the throne, dishonoring it daily! A compact such as yet was never entered into by a father and a husband, even of the lowest of mankind! A compact to deliver you a spotless virgin-victim to the vile-hearted and luxurious tyrant. Curses! a thousand curses on his soul! and on my own soul! who have fought and bled for him, and all to meet with this, as my reward of service!" "Great God! can these things be," she exclaimed, almost fainting with horror and disgust. "Can these things indeed be? But speak, Raoul, speak; how can you know all this?" "I tell you, Melanie, it is the talk, the very daily, hourly gossip of the streets, the alleys, nay, even the very kennels of Paris. Every one knows it--every one believes it, from the monarch in the Louvre to the lowest butcher of the Faubourg St. Antoine! "And they believe it--of me, of _me_, they believe this infamy!" "With this addition, if any addition were needed, that you are not a deceived victim, but a willing and proud participator in the shame." "I will--that is--" she corrected herself, speaking very rapidly and energetically--"I _would_ die sooner. But there is no need now to die. You have come back to me, and all will yet go well with us!" "It never can go well with us again," St. Renan answered gloomily. "The king never yields his purpose, he is as tenacious in his hold as reckless in his promptitude to seize. And they are paid beforehand." "Paid!" exclaimed the girl, shuddering at the word. "What atrocity! How paid?" "How, think you, did your good father earn his title and the rich governorship of Morlaix? What great deeds were rewarded to La Rochederrien by his marquisate, and this captaincy of mousquetaires. You know not yet, young lady, what virtue there is nowadays in being the accommodating father, or the convenient husband of a beauty!" "You speak harshly, St. Renan, and bitterly." "And if I do, have I not cause enough for bitterness and harshness?" he replied almost angrily. "Not against me, Raoul." "I am not bitter against you, Melanie. And yet--and yet--" "And yet _what_, Raoul?" "And yet had you resisted three days longer, we might have been saved--you might have been mine--" "I am yours, Raoul de St. Renan. Yours, ever and forever! No one's but only yours." "You speak but madness--your vow--the sacrament!" "To the winds with my vow--to the abyss with the fraudful sacrament!" she cried, almost fiercely. By sin it was obtained and sanctioned--in sin let it perish. I say--I swear, Raoul, if you will take me, I am yours." "Mine? Mine?" cried the young man, half bewildered. "How mine, and when?" "Thus," she replied, casting herself upon his breast, and winding her arms around his neck, and kissing his lips passionately and often. "Thus, Raoul, thus, and now!"