"What else can we do, now that your wife has discovered our secret? I wish you could have seen her! She knew our guilt, and yet she had the superhuman strength to speak to me, to smile and take my hand, so that she could shield her son from the blow. But no human being could stand such a struggle without succumbing sooner or later. And, besides, I should die under her contempt. My own seems, sometimes, more than I can endure. We must die!" Claude did not reply. His was one of those natures that look upon a secret crime as comparatively harmless. Only when it is dragged to the light do they see its guilt in its true color. And now he felt degraded in his own sight, and torn by conflicting emotions. "We must kill ourselves. There is no other way out of it." "Kill ourselves!" he repeated in the same tone of consternation. "Death, or flight. Take your choice." "But, Odette, you are insane. Your ideas are entirely too dramatic. You never see such tragedies except on the stage. When we are so happy in our love, that is not the time to commit suicide!" "But there is no other way of escape that I can discover. We have committed a crime, and must abide the consequences. We can flee, it is true. I am ready now to take your arm and go out with you into the world, giving up home and reputation for your love. Come, shall we go?" "No; that is impossible, too." Odette was filled with contempt at his cowardly indecision. "Do you want to give me up?" she cried. "Would you leave me?" "Leave you? never! You know I can not live without you. But I hesitate to sacrifice your honor, your reputation--" "My honor! that was tarnished long ago when I gave it into your keeping. My reputation--what do I care for the respect of others, when I have lost my own!" "And the disgrace!" "Are you afraid? I am not." "I am only thinking of you." She saw his hesitation. "You are a coward! You are trembling. You did not tremble when you followed me to Dijon. You were the one that proposed flight then. Do you not see that we must accept the responsibility of our guilt, and support it with dignity and courage. I have been more distressed by the thought of retaining the respect of our friends by deceit, than by any thing else. That has tormented me at times beyond endurance; this cringing dissembling, hypocrisy and treachery. When your wife flung her disdain and contempt in my face, I breathed freely for the first time in months; for this hateful deception of all around us must now come to an end. The world, our world, will cover us with disgrace; but we need not care. Place the pleasures of our mutual love in one side of the balance, with society's contempt in the other, and which will turn the scale? Braving scandal and disgrace shows that we at least have dignity and courage left. Come, let us go." These burning words roused him from his torpor. How beautiful she was in her scorn and excitement! He replied to Odette, who stood straight and motionless before him: