"Be comforted, dear Isabelle," said he at last, tenderly. "I was not
killed you see, nor even hurt; and I actually wounded my adversary,
though he does pass for a tolerably good swordsman hereabouts, I
believe."
"Yes, I well know what a strong hand is yours, and what a brave, noble
heart," Isabelle replied; "and I do not scruple to acknowledge that I
love you for it with all my heart; feeling sure that you will respect
my frank avowal, and not endeavour to take advantage of it. When I
first saw you, de Sigognac, dispirited and desolate, in that dreary,
half-ruined chateau, where your youth was passing in sadness and
solitude, I felt a tender interest in you suddenly spring into being in
my heart; had you been happy and prosperous I should have been afraid of
you, and have shrunk timidly from your notice. When we walked together
in that neglected garden, where you held aside the brambles so carefully
for me to pass unscathed, you gathered and presented to me a little
wild rose--the only thing you had to give me. As I raised it to my lips,
before putting it in my bosom, and kissed it furtively under pretence of
inhaling its fragrance, I could not keep back a tear that dropped upon
it, and secretly and in silence I gave you my heart in exchange for it.
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