"Yes," she resumed, "I love you as a father! Seeing you, usually so grave and austere, become for me so good, so indulgent, I thanked heaven for sending me a protector to replace those who are dead." M.Daburon could not restrain a sob; his heart was breaking.
"One word," continued Claire,--"one single word, would have enlightened me.

Why did you not pronounce it! It was with such happiness that I leant on you as a child on its mother; and with what inward joy I said to myself, 'I am sure of one friend, of one heart into which runs the overflow of mine!' Ah! why was not my confidence greater?
Why did I withhold my secret from you?
I might have avoided this fearful calamity.
I ought to have told you long since.

I no longer belong to myself freely and with happiness, I have given my life to another." To hover in the clouds, and suddenly to fall rudely to the earth, such was M.Daburon's fate; his sufferings are not to be described.
"Far better to have spoken," answered he; "yet no.

I owe to your silence, Claire, six months of delicious illusions, six months of enchanting dreams.

This shall be my share of life's happiness." The last beams of closing day still enabled the magistrate to see Mademoiselle d'Arlange.