"But, Gabriel," cried Diane, in deadly terror, "it is your words that are terrible; don't you see that they are? What! You don't choose even to tell me that you love me?" "If I love you, Diane! She asks me if I love her! Truly, then, yes, I do love you, like a madman, perhaps like a criminal!" "Like a criminal!" cried Madame de Castro, beside herself with terror and amazement. "What crime can there be in our love? Are we not both free? Will not my father consent to our union? God and the angels must delight in such a love." "Grant, oh, Lord, that she blaspheme not," cried Gabriel, in his heart, "even as I perhaps blasphemed myself, in speaking to Aloyse!" "What can be the matter?" repeated Diane. "My dear, you are not sick, are you? And you, generally so strong, whence come these fanciful fears? For I have no fear when near you. I know that with you I am as safe as with my father. See, to recall you to yourself, to life and happiness, I press close to your breast without fear, my dearly beloved husband! I press my brow against your lips without hesitation." Smiling bewitchingly, she approached him, her glorious face turned up to his, and her angelic glance soliciting his pure embrace. But Gabriel pushed her away in terror. "Away!" he cried; "no, no! leave me, flee from me!" "Oh, _mon Dieu_!" moaned Diane, letting her arms fall by her side. "_Mon Dieu_! he repels me; he loves me not!" "I love you too well!" said Gabriel. "If you love me, why should my proffered caresses be so terrible to you?" "Are they really terrible to me, then?" said Gabriel to himself. "Is it my instinct which repels them, and not my reason? Oh, come, Diane, let me see you and know you, and feel your presence! Come, and let me press my lips on your brow with a brother's kiss, in which a betrothed lover may indulge himself." He strained Diane to his heart, and pressed a long burning kiss on her hair. "Ah, I deceived myself!" cried he, in rapture at her very touch. "It is not the voice of blood which is crying to you from my heart; it is the voice of love! I know it! Oh, what bliss!" "What did you say, dear?" replied Diane. "If you say that you love me, you say all that I care to hear or to know." "Oh, indeed I love you, blessed angel; I love you passionately, madly! Yes, I love you, and to feel your heart beating against mine, like this, is very heaven to me; or is it hell?" cried he, suddenly, releasing himself from her embrace. "Away, away! let me fly, for I am accursed!" And he fled wildly from the room, leaving Diane dumb with terror, and as if turned to stone by despair. [Illustration: Mary Stuart and Gabriel.]