"You are wrong! I swear to you that you are wrong! He was going to kiss me, but his lips did not touch me, and it is the very first time that he made the attempt. Believe me, for I swear--on all that I hold most sacred--that I am telling you the truth." But the blacksmith shook his head. He knew that women did not always tell the truth on such points. Gervaise then became very grave. "You know me well," she said; "you know that I am no liar. I again repeat that Lantier and I are friends. We shall never be anything more, for if that should ever come to pass I should regard myself as the vilest of the vile and should be unworthy of the friendship of a man like yourself." Her face was so honest, her eyes were so clear and frank, that he could do no less than believe her. Once more he breathed freely. He held her hand for the first time. Both were silent. White clouds sailed slowly above their heads with the majesty of swans. The goat looked at them and bleated piteously, eager to be released, and they stood hand in hand on that bleak slope with tears in their eyes. "Your mother likes me no longer," said Gervaise in a low voice. "Do not say no; how can it be otherwise? We owe you so much money." He roughly shook her arm in his eagerness to check the words on her lips; he would not hear her. He tried to speak, but his throat was too dry; he choked a little and then he burst out: "Listen to me," he cried; "I have long wished to say something to you. You are not happy. My mother says things are all going wrong with you, and," he hesitated, "we must go away together and at once." She looked at him, not understanding him but impressed by this abrupt declaration of a love from him, who had never before opened his lips in regard to it. "What do you mean?" she said. "I mean," he answered without looking in her face, "that we two can go away and live in Belgium. It is almost the same to me as home, and both of us could get work and live comfortably." The color came to her face, which she would have hidden on his shoulder to hide her shame and confusion. He was a strange fellow to propose an elopement. It was like a book and like the things she heard of in high society. She had often seen and known of the workmen about her making love to married women, but they did not think of running away with them. "Ah, Monsieur Goujet!" she murmured, but she could say no more. "Yes," he said, "we two would live all by ourselves." But as her self-possession returned she refused with firmness. "It is impossible," she said, "and it would be very wrong. I am married and I have children. I know that you are fond of me, and I love you too much to allow you to commit any such folly as you are talking of, and this would be an enormous folly. No; we must live on as we are. We respect each other now. Let us continue to do so. That is a great deal and will help us over many a roughness in our paths. And when we try to do right we are sure of a reward."