insult to the creation.  Everything would be an abyss.  You know not what you say, Dea.  You shall live!  I command you to live!  You must obey me!  I am your husband and your master; I forbid you to leave me!  O heavens!  O wretched Man!  No, it cannot be—­I to remain in the world after you!  Why, it is as monstrous as that there should be no sun!  Dea!  Dea! recover!  It is but a moment of passing pain.  One feels a shudder at times, and thinks no more about it.  It is absolutely necessary that you should get well and cease to suffer. You die!  What have I done to you?  The very thought of it drives me mad.  We belong to each other, and we love each other.  You have no reason for going!  It would be unjust!  Have I committed crimes?  Besides, you have forgiven me.  Oh, you would not make me desperate—­have me become a villain, a madman, drive me to perdition?  Dea, I entreat you!  I conjure you!  I supplicate you!  Do not die!”

And clenching his hands in his hair, agonized with fear, stifled with tears, he threw himself at her feet.

“My Gwynplaine,” said Dea, “it is no fault of mine.”

There then rose to her lips a red froth, which Ursus wiped away with the fold of her robe, before Gwynplaine, who was prostrate at her feet, could see it.

Gwynplaine took her feet in his hands, and implored her in all kinds of confused words.

“I tell you, I will not have it! You die?  I have no strength left to bear it.  Die?  Yes; but both of us together—­not otherwise. You die, my Dea?  I will never consent to it!  My divinity, my love!  Do you understand that I am with you?  I swear that you shall live!  Oh, but you cannot have thought what would become of me after you were gone.  If you had an idea of the necessity which you are to me, you would see that it is absolutely impossible!  Dea! you see I have but you!  The most extraordinary things have happened to me.  You will hardly believe that I have just explored the whole of life in a few hours!  I have found out one thing—­that there is nothing in it!  You exist! if you did not, the universe would have no meaning.  Stay with me!  Have pity on me!  Since you love me, live on!  If I have just found you again, it is to keep you.  Wait a little longer; you cannot leave me like this, now that we have been together but a few minutes!  Do not be impatient!  O Heaven, how I suffer!  You are not angry with me, are you?  You know that I could not help going when the wapentake came for me.  You will breathe more easily presently, you will see.  Dea, all has been put right.  We are going to be happy.  Do not drive me to despair, Dea!  I have done nothing to you.”

These words were not spoken, but sobbed out.  They rose from his breast—­now in a lament which might have attracted the dove, now in a roar which might have made lions recoil.

Dea answered him in a voice growing weaker and weaker, and pausing at nearly every word.