These are not simple
gallantries; and though I might be willing to pardon and overlook many
excesses, committed in the wildness of licentious youth, I never could
bring myself to forgive a deliberate and premeditated crime. Do
you know, you monster," he continued approaching Vallombreuse, and
whispering in his ear, so that no one else could hear, "do you know
who this young girl is? this good and chaste Isabelle, whom you have
forcibly abducted, in spite of her determined and virtuous resistance!
She is your own sister!
"May she replace the son you are about to lose," the young duke replied,
attacked by a sudden faintness, and an agony of pain which he felt
that he could not long endure and live; "but I am not as guilty as you
suppose. Isabelle is pure--stainless. I swear it, by the God before whom
I must shortly appear. Death does not lie, and you may believe what I
say, upon the word of a dying gentleman."
These words were uttered loudly and distinctly, so as to be heard
by all. Isabelle turned her beautiful eyes, wet with tears, upon de
Sigognac, and read in those of her true and faithful lover that he had
not waited for the solemn attestation, "in extremis," of the Duke of
Vallombreuse to believe in the perfect purity of her whom he adored.
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