"But," cried Rigolette, with impatience, "I tell you, it is not pity, it is love. I only think of you! I sleep no more--I eat no more. Your sad and melancholy looks follow me everywhere. Is that pity? Now, when you speak to me, your voice, your look, go to my heart. There are a thousand things in you which now please me, and which I had not remarked. I love your face, I love your eyes, I love you, I love your mind, I love your good heart; is this still pity? Why, after having loved you as a friend, do I love you as a lover? I do not know! Why was I lively and gay when I loved you as a friend? Why am I all changed since I love you as a lover? I do not know. Why have I waited so long to find you both handsome and good? to love you at once with my eyes and my heart? I do not know; or, rather, yes, I do know: it is because I have discovered how much you loved me without ever telling it; how much you were generous and devoted. Then love mounted from my heart to my eyes, like as a soft tear mounts there when one is affected." "Really, I think I am in a dream on hearing you talk thus." "And I, then! I never should have thought it possible that I could dare to tell you all this; but your despair compelled me! Ah, well! now that you know that I love you as my friend, as my lover, as my husband, will you still say it is pity?" The generous scruples of Germain were dispelled in a moment before this avowal, so artless and courageous. A joy unlooked--for tore him from his sorrowful meditations. "You love me!" cried he. "I believe you; your voice, your look, all tell me! I do not wish to ask myself how I have deserved such happiness, I abandon myself to it blindly. My life, my whole life, will not suffice to pay my debt to you! Ah! I have already suffered much, but this moment compensates all!" "At length you are consoled. Oh! I was very sure, very sure I should succeed!" cried Rigolette, with a burst of charming joy. "And is it in the midst of the horrors of a prison, and is it when everything oppresses me, that such a felicity--" Germain could not finish. This thought recalling the reality of his position, his scruples, for a moment forgotten, returned more cruel than ever, and he resumed, with despair, "But I am a prisoner; I am accused of robbery; I shall be condemned perhaps; and I would accept your valorous sacrifice! I would profit by your generous exaltation! Oh, no! no! I am not infamous enough for this!" "What do you say?" "I may be condemned to years of imprisonment." "Well!" answered Rigolette, with calmness and firmness, "they will see that I am a virtuous girl; they will not refuse to marry us in the prison chapel." "But I may be confined far from Paris." "Once your wife, I will follow you; I will live in the place where you may be; I will work there, and will come to see you every day!" "But I shall be disgraced in the eyes of all." "You love me more than all, don't you?" "Can you ask me?"