you not remember this place? It was here that you forced me to say
that I loved you. It is here also that you will tell me that I have
been deceived."

"It is not I that would deceive you," he said. "I wonder that you
should be so hard upon me. God knows that I have trouble enough."

"Well, if I am a trouble to you, be it so. Be it as you wish," and
she leaned back against the wall of the rock, and crossing her arms
upon her breast looked away from him and fixed her eyes upon the
sharp granite peaks of Canigou.

He again betook himself to walk backwards and forwards through the
cave. He had quite enough of love for her to make him wish to marry
her; quite enough now, at this moment, to make the idea of her
marriage with the capitaine very distasteful to him; enough probably
to make him become a decently good husband to her, should fate enable
him to marry her; but not enough to enable him to support all the
punishment which would be the sure effects of his mother's
displeasure. Besides, he had promised his mother that he would give
up Marie;--had entirely given in his adhesion to that plan of the
marriage with the capitaine. He had owned that the path of life as
marked out for him by his mother was the one which it behoved him, as
a man, to follow. It was this view of his duties as a man which had
I been specially urged on him with all the capitaine's eloquence.
And old Campan had entirely succeeded. It is so easy to get the
assent of such young men, so weak in mind and so weak in pocket, when
the arguments are backed by a promise of two thousand francs a year.

"I'll tell you what I'll do," at last he said. "I'll get my mother