“Yes, I will marry him, father,” answered Edmee.  “I could have wished to be free a few months more; but since you are displeased at all these delays, I am ready to obey your orders, as you know.”

“Parbleu! that is a pretty way of consenting,” exclaimed my uncle, “and no doubt most gratifying to your cousin!  By Jove!  Bernard, I have lived many years in this world, but I must own that I can’t understand these women yet, and it is very probable that I shall die without ever having understood them.”

“Uncle,” I said, “I can quite understand my cousin’s aversion for me; it is only what I deserve.  I have done all I could to atone for my errors.  But, is it altogether in her power to forget a past which has doubtless caused her too much pain?  However, if she does not forgive me, I will imitate her severity:  I will not forgive myself.  Abandoning all hope in this world, I will tear myself away from her and you, and chasten myself with a punishment worse than death.”

“That’s it!  Go on!  There’s an end of everything!” said the chevalier, throwing the tongs into the fire.  “That is just what you have been aiming at, I suppose, Edmee?”

I had moved a few steps towards the door; I was suffering intensely.  Edmee ran after me, took me by the arm, and brought me back towards her father.

“It is cruel and most ungrateful of you to say that,” she said.  “Does it show a modest spirit and generous heart, to forget a friendship, a devotion, I may even venture to say, a fidelity of seven years, because I ask to prove you for a few months more?  And even if my affection for you should never be as deep as yours for me, is what I have hitherto shown you of so little account that you despise it and reject it, because you are vexed at not inspiring me with precisely as much as you think you are entitled to?  You know at this rate a woman would have no right to feel affection.  However, tell me, is it your wish to punish me for having been a mother to you by leaving me altogether, or to make some return only on condition that I become your slave?”

“No, Edmee, no,” I replied, with my heart breaking and my eyes full of tears, as I raised her hand to my lips; “I feel that you have done far more for me than I deserved; I feel that it would be idle to think of tearing myself from your presence; but can you account it a crime in me to suffer by your side?  In any case it is so involuntary, so inevitable a crime, that it must needs escape all your reproaches and all my own remorse.  But let us talk of this no more.  It is all I can do.  Grant me your friendship still; I shall hope to show myself always worthy of you in the future.”

“Come, kiss each other,” said the chevalier, much affected, “and never separate.  Bernard, however capricious Edmee may seem, never abandon her, if you would deserve the blessing of your foster-father.  Though you should never be her husband, always be a brother to her.  Remember, my lad, that she will soon be alone in the world, and that I shall die in sorrow if I do not carry with me to the grave a conviction that a support and a defender still remains to her.  Remember, too, that it is on your account, on account of a vow, which her inclination, perhaps, would reject, but which her conscience respects, that she is thus forsaken and slandered . . .”