"To you less than anybody else."

And, feeling how mortifying such an answer must be, he added,--

"Your mind is too pure for such wretched intrigues. I do not want your
wedding-dress to be stained by a speck of that mud into which they have
thrown me."

Was she deceived? No; but she had the courage to seem to be deceived.
She went on quietly,--

"Very well, then. But the truth will have to be told sooner or later."

"Yes, to M. Magloire."

"Well, then, Jacques, write down at once what you mean to tell him. Here
are pen and ink: I will carry it to him faithfully."

"There are things, Dionysia, which cannot be written."

She felt she was beaten; she understood that nothing would ever bend
that iron will, and yet she said once more,--

"But if I were to beseech you, Jacques, by our past and our future, by
that great and eternal love which you have sworn?"

"Do you really wish to make my prison hours a thousand times harder than
they are? Do you want to deprive me of my last remnant of strength and
of courage? Have you really no confidence in me any longer? Could you
not believe me a few days more?"