"Yes, but then we must deceive those whom we love!" "O Gilberte! what can we do?" "I will think about it; let me go." "Go without promising me anything at all?" "You have my pledge and my heart; are they nothing to you?" "Go, then!" said Emile, making a violent effort to unclasp his arms, which obstinately detained Gilberte's slender form. "I am happy, Gilberte, even as I let you go! See if I love you, if I believe in you and in myself!" "Believe in God," said Gilberte, "He will protect us." And she disappeared among the trees. Emile remained a long while on the spot she had just left. He kissed the grass that her feet had barely touched and the tree she had grazed with her dress, and after lying a long while in that thicket, the silent witness of his last joy, he tore himself away with difficulty. Gilberte ran after her father, who had started to return to the ruins and was walking fast in front of her. Suddenly he turned and retraced his steps. "Ah! my dear child, I was coming back to look for you," he said innocently. "That is to say, father, you had forgotten me," replied Gilberte, forcing herself to smile. "No, no, don't say that; Janille would call it absent-mindedness! I was thinking of you all the time. That letter from Monsieur Cardonnet is running in my brain. Perhaps Emile is waiting for us at the house--who knows? Probably he couldn't have come sooner; his father must have detained him. Let us hurry back; I'll wager that he's there." And the goodman confidently quickened his pace. Janille was in a savage humor. She could not understand Emile's moderation, and was beginning to be seriously disturbed. Gilberte tried to divert her thoughts, and during supper was calm and almost cheerful. But she was no sooner alone in her room than she fell on her knees and buried her face in the bed, to stifle the sobs which shook her frame. XXVIII CONSOLATION Gilberte was resigned, albeit in despair. Emile was perhaps less desperate, because in the bottom of his heart he was not yet resigned. Every moment his uncertainty returned, and the greater and more worthy of his love Gilberte appeared to him in the light of their conversation, the more intensely did that love make its invincible power felt. As he was entering the village, he turned abruptly and retraced his steps, trying to fancy that he was going to Châteaubrun; and when he had walked a few minutes, he sat down on a rock, covered his face with his hands, and felt weaker, more in love, more human than ever. "If Monsieur de Boisguilbault had seen her and heard her," he said to himself, "he would understand that I cannot hesitate between her and myself, and that I must have her, even at the price of a falsehood! O my God! my God! inspire me. It was Thou who didst plant this love in my heart, and, having given me the strength to conceive it, Thou wouldst not give me the strength to crush it."