At last, as my only answer to all her entreaties was, “Do you love me, or are you fooling me?” she saw what a brute she had to deal with, and, making up her mind accordingly, she came towards me, threw her arms round my neck, hid her face in my bosom, and let me kiss her hair. Then she put me gently from her, saying:
“Ah, mon Dieu! don’t you see how I love you – how I could not help loving you from the very first moment I saw you? But don’t you understand that I hate your uncles, and that I would be yours alone?”
“Yes,” I replied, obstinately, “because you say to yourself: ‘This is a booby whom I shall persuade to do anything I wish, by telling him that I love him; he will believe it, and I will take him away to be hanged.’ Come; there is only one word which will serve if you love me.”
She looked at me with an agonized air. I sought to press my lips to hers whenever her head was not turned away. I held her hands in mine. She was powerless now to do more than delay the hour of her defeat. Suddenly the colour rushed back to the pale face; she began to smile; and with an expression of angelic coquetry, she asked:
“And you – do you love me?”
From this moment the victory was hers. I no longer had power to will what I wished. The lynx in me was subdued; the man rose in its place; and I believe that my voice had a human ring, as I cried for the first time in my life:
“Yes, I love you! Yes, I love you!”
“Well, then,” she said, distractedly, and in a caressing tone, “let us love each other and escape together.”
“Yes, let us escape,” I answered. “I loathe this house, and I loathe my uncles. I have long wanted to escape. And yet I shall only be hanged, you know.”
“They won’t hang you,” she rejoined with a laugh; “my betrothed is a lieutenant-general.”
“Your betrothed!” I cried, in a fresh fit of jealousy more violent than the first. “You are going to be married?”
“And why not?” she replied, watching me attentively.
I turned pale and clinched my teeth.
“In that case,.” I said, trying to carry her off in my arms.
“In that case,” she answered, giving me a little tap on the cheek, “I see that you are jealous; but his must be a particular jealousy who at ten o’clock yearns for his mistress, only to hand her over at midnight to eight drunken men who will return her to him on the morrow as foul as the mud on the roads.”
“Ah, you are right!” I exclaimed. “Go, then; go. I would defend you to the last drop of my blood; but I should be vanquished by numbers, and I should die with the knowledge that you were left to them. How horrible! I shudder to think of it. Come – you must go.”
“Yes! yes, my angel!” she cried, kissing me passionately on the cheek.
These caresses, the first a woman had given me since my childhood, recalled, I know not how or why, my mother’s last kiss, and, instead of pleasure, caused me profound sadness. I felt my eyes filling with tears. Noticing this, she kissed my tears, repeating the while:
“Save me! Save me!”
“And your marriage?” I asked. “Oh! listen. Swear that you will not marry before I die. You will not have to wait long; for my uncles administer sound justice and swift, as they say.”
“You are not going to follow me, then?” she asked.
“Follow you? No; it is as well to be hanged here for helping you to escape as to be hanged yonder for being a bandit. Here, at least, I avoid a twofold shame: I shall not be accounted an informer, and shall not be hanged in a public place.”
“I will not leave you here,” she cried, “though I die myself. Fly with me. You run no risk, believe me. Before God, I declare you are safe. Kill me, if I lie. But let us start – quickly. O God! I hear them singing. They are coming this way. Ah, if you will not defend me, kill me at once!”
She threw herself into my arms. Love and jealousy were gradually overpowering me. Indeed, I even thought seriously of killing her; and I kept my hand on my hunting-knife as long as I heard any noise or voices near the hall. They were exulting in their victory. I cursed Heaven for not giving it to our foes. I clasped Edmee to my breast, and we remained motionless in each other’s arms, until a fresh report announced that the fight was beginning again. Then I pressed her passionately to my heart.
“You remind me,” I said, “of a poor little dove which one day flew into my jacket to escape from a kite, and tried to hide itself in my bosom.”
“And you did not give it up to the kite, did you?” asked Edmee.
“No, by all the devils! not any more than I shall give you up, you, the prettiest of all the birds in the woods, to these vile night-birds that are threatening you.”
“But how shall we escape?” she cried, terror-stricken by the volleys they were firing.
“Easily,” I said. “Follow me.”
I seized a torch, and lifting a trap-door, I made her descend with me to the cellar. Thence we passed into a subterranean passage hollowed out of the rock. This, in bygone days had enabled the garrison, then more numerous, to venture upon an important move in case of an attack; some of the besieged would emerge into the open country on the side opposite the portcullis and fall on the rear of the besiegers, who were thus caught between two fires. But many years had passed since the garrison of Roche-Mauprat was large enough to be divided into two bodies; and besides, during the night it would have been folly to venture beyond the walls. We arrived, therefore, at the exit of the passage without meeting with any obstacle. But at the last moment I was seized with a fit of madness. I threw down my torch, and leaned against the door.
“You shall not go out from here,” I said to the trembling Edmee, “without promising to be mine.”
We were in darkness; the noise of the fight no longer reached us. Before any one could surprise us here we had ample time to escape. Everything was in my favour. Edmee was now at the mercy of my caprice. When she saw that the seductions of her beauty could no longer rouse me to ecstasy, she ceased to implore, and drew backward a few steps.
“Open the door,” she said, “and go out first, or I will kill myself. See, I have your hunting-knife. You left it by the side of the trap-door. To return to your uncles you will have to walk through my blood.”
Her resolute manner frightened me.
“Give me that knife,” I said, “or, be the consequences what they may, I will take it from you by force.”
“Do you think I am afraid to die?” she said calmly. “If this knife had only been in my hand yonder in the chateau, I should not have humbled myself before you.”
“Confound it!” I cried, “you have deceived me. Your love is a sham. Begone! I despise you. I will not follow such as you.”
At the same time I opened the door.
“I would not go without you,” she cried; “and you – you would not have me go without dishonour. Which of us is the more generous?”
“You are mad,” I said. “You have lied to me; and you do not know what to do to make a fool of me. However, you shall not go out from here without swearing that your marriage with the lieutenant-general or any other man shall not take place before you have been my mistress.”
“Your mistress!” she said. “Are you dreaming? Could you not at least soften the insult by saying your wife?”
“That is what any one of my uncles would say in my place; because they would care only about your dowry. But I – I yearn for nothing but your beauty. Swear, then, that you will be mine first; afterwards you shall be free, on