It is so base to
deceive a loving woman, for it is so easy. He might have killed me if
he chose, but lie to me! to me, who held him in my thoughts so high!
The scaffold! the scaffold! ah! could I only see him guillotined! Am I
cruel? He shall go to his death covered with caresses, with kisses
which might have blessed him for a lifetime--"
"Marie," said Francine, gently, "be the victim of your lover like
other women; not his mistress and his betrayer. Keep his memory in
your heart; do not make it an anguish to you. If there were no joys in
hopeless love, what would become of us, poor women that we are? God,
of whom you never think, Marie, will reward us for obeying our
vocation on this earth,--to love, and suffer."
"Dear," replied Mademoiselle de Verneuil, taking Francine's hand and
patting it, "your voice is very sweet and persuasive. Reason is
attractive from your lips. I should like to obey you, but--"
"You will forgive him, you will not betray him?"
"Hush! never speak of that man again. Compared with him Corentin is a
noble being. Do you hear me?"
She rose, hiding beneath a face that was horribly calm the madness of
her soul and a thirst for vengeance. The slow and measured step with
which she left the room conveyed the sense of an irrevocable
resolution. Lost in thought, hugging her insults, too proud to show
the slightest suffering, she went to the guard-room at the Porte
Saint-Leonard and asked where the commandant lived.
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