It is not the world that I fear! But if one might consent to fly from the chateau of a rich and happy father, one _cannot_ consent to desert the poor abode of a despairing and penniless parent.

Leave me, Maurice, where honor holds me.

It will not be difficult for me, who am the daughter of generations of peasants, to become a peasant.

Go! I cannot endure more! Go! and remember that one cannot be utterly wretched if one's conscience is clean, and one's duty fulfilled!" Maurice was about to reply, when a crackling of dry branches made him turn his head.
Scarcely ten paces off, Martial de Sairmeuse was standing motionless, leaning upon his gun..