“Will marriage prevent your filling that rôle? We shall not leave Chambéry.” “You can’t give only half of yourself, Raymond. I have renounced my personal happiness. And from the day I renounced it I have felt a great force in me.” He gave a violent start, in protest. “But there’s no sense in it, Margaret. You have no right to deny yourself like this. You will live after your father’s gone. Your brother when he’s acquitted to-morrow will lead his own life, apart from you. And you, what will become of you all alone? What’s the use of sacrificing yourself for needless scruples?” “My father has been smitten to the heart. My brother is always in danger. Don’t take away any of my courage by telling me I shall not be useful to them.” Raymond gave in and ceased to struggle. He felt warned intuitively of his defeat, from the look in Margaret’s eyes still more than from her words, yet he tried to put off the moment of defeat. With a timid and softened voice he begged her for a delay. “And if I wait for you, will you marry me?” he said. “If I remain faithful to you until the time when you have fulfilled your task for your family, will you come to me? I love you so much that rather than lose you I shall know how to be patient. It will be cruel and sweet together. Won’t you, Margaret?” The girl’s eyes clouded a moment at this romantic and heroic proposal. He saw she was more human, and he believed she was yielding to him. He conceived a new hope from it, which her reply dissipated with its first words. “No, Raymond, I shan’t consent to build my future on your sorrow. It’s impossible. You have not understood me entirely. I have given myself to God. Don’t try to take me back.” “Ah, Margaret!” “To give myself to God is to give myself to all those that suffer.” “I understand now. You want to join some religious order.” “I don’t know yet. There are very many ways of serving God. Don’t tell any one yet what I’ve told you. You’re crying. Don’t cry, Raymond. God will console you, as he has consoled me.” “No, not me.” And between two sobs he asked her: “What are you going to do?” “As long as my father lives I shall help him. As long as Maurice needs me I shall stand by him. At my mother’s death-bed I promised that. Afterwards I’ll devote my strength to the unfortunate, to the old, or maybe to children that have lost their parents. Perhaps I’ll keep a school here for little poor children. I don’t know. I can’t tell now. I mustn’t try to hurry up the future. It will come of itself. You see, now you know all my secrets.” “And I,” he murmured, “what will become of me? You’re thinking of comforting all wretchedness and you forget mine.” “Raymond!” “I am more unhappy than the poorest people there are. They at least have had no glimpse of happiness, but I have, and am cast down after having known joy.”