How near is despair to joy!  Dea, we live!  Dea, forgive me.  Yes—­yours for ever.  You are right.  Touch my forehead.  Make sure that it is I. If you only knew—­but nothing can separate us now.  I rise out of hell, and ascend into heaven.  Am I not with you?  You said that I descended.  Not so; I reascend.  Once more with you!  For ever!  I tell you for ever!  Together!  We are together!  Who would have believed it?  We have found each other again.  All our troubles are past.  Before us now there is nothing but enchantment.  We will renew our happy life, and we will shut the door so fast that misfortune shall never enter again.  I will tell you all.  You will be astonished.  The vessel has sailed.  No one can prevent that now.  We are on our voyage, and at liberty.  We are going to Holland.  We will marry.  I have no fear about gaining a livelihood.  What can hinder it?  There is nothing to fear.  I adore you!”

“Not so quick!” stammered Ursus.

Dea, trembling, and with the rapture of an angelic touch, passed her hand over Gwynplaine’s profile.  He overheard her say to herself, “It is thus that gods are made.”

Then she touched his clothes.

“The esclavine,” she said, “the cape.  Nothing changed; all as it was before.”

Ursus, stupefied, delighted, smiling, drowned in tears, looked at them, and addressed an aside to himself.

“I don’t understand it in the least.  I am a stupid idiot—­I, who saw him carried to the grave!  I cry and I laugh.  That is all I know.  I am as great a fool as if I were in love myself.  But that is just what I am.  I am in love with them both.  Old fool!  Too much emotion—­too much emotion.  It is what I was afraid of.  No; it is that I wished for.  Gwynplaine, be careful of her.  Yes, let them kiss; it is no affair of mine.  I am but a spectator.  What I feel is droll.  I am the parasite of their happiness, and I am nourished by it.”

Whilst Ursus was talking to himself, Gwynplaine exclaimed,—­

“Dea, you are too beautiful!  I don’t know where my wits were gone these last few days.  Truly, there is but you on earth.  I see you again, but as yet I can hardly believe it.  In this ship!  But tell me, how did it all happen?  To what a state have they reduced you!  But where is the Green Box?  They have robbed you.  They have driven you away.  It is infamous.  Oh, I will avenge you—­I will avenge you, Dea!  They shall answer for it.  I am a peer of England.”

Ursus, as if stricken by a planet full in his breast, drew back, and looked at Gwynplaine attentively.

“It is clear that he is not dead; but can he have gone mad?” and he listened to him doubtfully.

Gwynplaine resumed.

“Be easy, Dea; I will carry my complaint to the House of Lords.”

Ursus looked at him again, and struck his forehead with the tip of his forefinger.  Then making up his mind,—­

“It is all one to me,” he said.  “It will be all right, all the same.  Be as mad as you like, my Gwynplaine.  It is one of the rights of man.  As for me, I am happy.  But how came all this about?”