"Twice I owe to chance," said the marquis to Mademoiselle de Verneuil,
"the revelation of the sweetest secrets of the heart. Thanks to
Francine I now know you bear the gracious name of Marie,--Marie, the
name I have invoked in my distresses,--Marie, a name I shall
henceforth speak in joy, and never without sacrifice, mingling
religion and love. There can be no wrong where prayer and love go
together."
They clasped hands, looked silently into each other's eyes, and the
excess of their emotion took away from them the power to express it.
"There's no danger for /the rest of you/," Marche-a-Terre was saying
roughly to Francine, giving to his hoarse and guttural voice a
reproachful tone, and emphasizing his last words in a way to stupefy
the innocent peasant-girl. For the first time in her life she saw
ferocity in that face. The moonlight seemed to heighten the effect of
it. The savage Breton, holding his cap in one hand and his heavy
carbine in the other, dumpy and thickset as a gnome, and bathed in
that white light the shadows of which give such fantastic aspects to
forms, seemed to belong more to a world of goblins than to reality.
This apparition and its tone of reproach came upon Francine with the
suddenness of a phantom. He turned rapidly to Madame du Gua, with whom
he exchanged a few eager words, which Francine, who had somewhat
forgotten the dialect of Lower Brittany, did not understand.
Pages:
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174