"Still I know enough to know that you will run no danger in my hands."

She believed that he opened a door of escape to her.

"Never mind, I am too much afraid. If you ever want to make me talk in a
state of forced somnambulism, ask one of your 'confreres' in whom you
have confidence to put me to sleep."

Before a 'confrere' she was certain he would not ask her dangerous
questions.

He understood that she wished to escape him.

"Afraid of what?" he asked. "That I shall ask you questions about the
past, concerning your life before we knew each other, and demand a
confession that would wound my love?"

"O Victor!" she cried, distracted. "What more cruel wound could you
give me than these words? My confession! It comprises three words: I
love you; I have never loved any one but you; I shall never love any one
but you. I have no past; my life began with my love."

He could not press it without showing the importance that he attached to
it.

"I do not insist," he said; "it is a way like any other, but better.
You do not wish it, and we will not talk of it."

But he yielded too quickly for her to hope that he renounced his project,