"My poor friend," said she, "you judge me very wrongfully if you think me insensible to your sufferings. I have known you thoroughly, Leon, and that too since my very childhood. I know all that there is in you of devotion, delicacy and precious and noble virtues. Since the time when you carried me in your arms to the poor, and put a penny in my hand to teach me to give alms, I have never heard benevolence spoken of without involuntarily thinking of you. When you whipped a boy twice your size for taking away my doll, I felt that courage was noble and that a woman would be happy in being able to lean on a brave man. All that I have ever seen you do since that time, has only redoubled my esteem and my sympathy. Believe me that it is neither from wickedness or ingratitude that I make you suffer now. Alas! I no longer belong to myself, I am under external control; I am like those automatons that move without knowing why. Yes, I feel an impulse within me more powerful than my self control, and it is the will of another that leads me." "If I could but be sure that you will be happy! But no! This man, before whom you immolate me, will never know the worth of a soul as delicate as yours. He is a brute, a swash-buckler, a drunkard." "I beseech you, Leon, remember that he has a right to my unreserved respect!" "Respect! For him! And why? I ask of you, in Heaven's name, what you find respectable in the character of Mister Fougas? His age? He is younger than I. His talents? He never shows them anywhere but at the table. His education? It's lovely! His virtues? _I_ know what is to be thought of his refinement and gratitude!" "I have respected him, Leon, since I first saw him in his coffin. It is a sentiment stronger than all else; I cannot explain it, I can but submit to it." "Very well! Respect him as much as you please! Yield to the superstition that enchains you. See in him a miraculous being, consecrated, rescued from the grip of Death to accomplish something great on earth! But this itself, Oh my dear Clementine, is a barrier between you and him! If Fougas is outside of the conditions of humanity, if he is a phenomenon, a being apart, a hero, a demigod, a fetich, you cannot seriously think of becoming his wife. As for me, I am but a man like others, born to work, to suffer and to love. I love you! Love me!" "Scoundrel!" cried Fougas, opening the door. Clementine uttered a cry, Leon sprung up quickly, but the Colonel had already seized him by the most practicable part of his nankeen suit, before he had even time to think of a single word in reply. The engineer was lifted up, balanced like an atom in one of the sunbeams, and flung into the very midst of the heliotropes. Poor Leon! Poor heliotropes!