"Mademoiselle, you cannot mean... "
"I do, monsieur... irrevocably, please to understand." He looked
at her with eyes of misery, his handsome, manly face as pale as
she had ever seen it. The hand he had been holding out in protest
began to shake. He lowered it to his side again, lest she should
perceive its tremor. Thus a brief second, while the battle was
fought within him, the bitter engagement between his desires and
what he conceived to be the demands of his honour, never perceiving
how far his honour was buttressed by implacable vindictiveness.
Retreat, he conceived, was impossible without shame; and shame was
to him an agony unthinkable. She asked too much. She could not
understand what she was asking, else she would never be so
unreasonable, so unjust. But also he saw that it would be futile
to attempt to make her understand.
It was the end. Though he kill Andre-Louis Moreau in the morning
as he fiercely hoped he would, yet the victory even in death must
lie with Andre-Louis Moreau.
He bowed profoundly, grave and sorrowful of face as he was grave
and sorrowful of heart.
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