Could it be true that a poor girl--a child without a name, a little embroiderer, first seen under a pale ray of moonlight, had been transfigured into a delicate Virgin of the Legends, and adored with a fervent love as if in a dream?
At each new acknowledgment he thought his anger was increased, as his heart beat with such an inordinate emotion, and he redoubled his attempts at self-control, knowing not what cry might come to his lips.
He had finished by replying with a single word, "Never!" Then Felicien threw himself on his knees before him, implored him, and pleaded his cause as well as that of Angelique, in the trembling of respect and of terror with which the sight of his father always filled him.

Until then he had approached him only with fear.

He besought him not to oppose his happiness, without even daring to lift his eyes towards his saintly personage.

With a submissive voice he offered to go away, no matter where; to leave all his great fortune to the Church, and to take his wife so far from there that they would never be seen again.

He only wished to love and to be loved, unknown.