“Insults! Let any one dare insult you! But will you not now be my wife in the sight of men, as you are in the sight of heaven? The failure of your father’s scheme sets you free!” “No, no, Maurice, I am not free! Ah! it is you who are pitiless! I see only too well that you curse me, that you curse the day when we met for the first time! Confess it!” And so speaking Marie-Anne lifted her streaming eyes to his. “As for me,” she resumed, “I could not say so. Grievous my fault is, no doubt, I am disgraced and humiliated, but still----” She could not finish; Maurice drew her to him, and their lips and their tears met in one long embrace. “You love me,” he exclaimed, “you love me in spite of everything! We shall succeed. I will save your father, and mine--I will save your brother too.” He had no time to say more. The baron’s berline, to which a couple of horses had been harnessed, that they might reach Montaignac with greater speed, was waiting in the courtyard; and the abbe’s voice could be heard calling on Maurice to make haste, and Madame d’Escorval, moreover, now returned, carrying a letter which she handed to her son. One long, last embrace, and then leaving the two women to their tears and prayers, Maurice and the abbe sprang into the carriage, which was soon dashing along the high road towards Montaignac. “If, by confessing your own guilt, you could save your father,” said the Abbe Midon as they rolled through the village of Sairmeuse, “I should tell you to give yourself up, and confess the whole truth. Such would be your duty. But such a sacrifice would be not only useless, but dangerous. Your confessions of guilt would only implicate your father still more. You would be arrested, but they would not release him, and you would both be tried and convicted. Let us then allow--I will not say justice, for that would be blasphemy--but these blood-thirsty men, who call themselves judges, to pursue their course, and attribute all that you yourself have done to your father. When the trial comes on you will be able to prove his innocence, and to produce _alibis_ of so unimpeachable a character, that they will be forced to acquit him. And I understand the people of our province well enough to feel sure that none of them will reveal our stratagem.” “And if we should not succeed in that way,” asked Maurice, gloomily, “what could I do then?”