before her as I put myself in her way.

"It is all that was wanting - that you should offer me violence!"
she exclaimed.

"God forbid!" said I.

"Then let me pass."

"Aye, when you have heard me."

"I do not wish to hear you. Nothing that you may say can matter to
me. Oh, monsieur, if you have any instincts of gentility, if you
have any pretension to be accounted anything but a mauvais sujet, I
beg of you to respect my grief. You witnessed, yourself, the arrest
of my father. This is no season for such as scene as you are
creating."

"Pardon! It is in such a season as this that you need the comfort
and support that the man you love alone can give you."

"The man I love?" she echoed, and from flushed that they had been,
her cheeks went very pale. Her eyes fell for an instant, then -
they were raised again, and their blue depths were offered me. "I
think, sir," she said, through her teeth, "that your insolence
transcends all belief."

"Can you deny it?" I cried. "Can you deny that you love me? If
you can - why, then, you lied to me three nights ago at Toulouse!"