"You know that I am not so! Why speak of it?"

She drew nearer to him, and with her breath, more than with her voice,
answered:

"Is it impossible? Tell me!"

"How?" he demanded.

She did not reply, but her fixed look, caressing and cruel, answered him.

"Speak, then, I beg of you!" murmured Camors.

"Have you not told me--I have not forgotten it--that we are united by
ties stronger than all others; that the world and its laws exist no
longer for us; that there is no other good, no other bad for us, but our
happiness or our unhappiness? Well, we are not happy, and if we could be
so--listen, I have thought well over it!"

Her lips touched the cheek of Camors, and the murmur of her last words
was lost in her kisses.

Camors roughly repelled her, sprang up, and stood before her.

"Charlotte," he said, sternly, "this is only a trial, I hope; but, trial
or no, never repeat it--never! Remember!"

She also quickly drew herself up.