Say that I am as much to you, and what more do we need?
Say it! say it!" and, in the vehemence of his appeal, the sick man half raised himself from his bed.
"I cannot! I cannot!" said Sophie, in a low, penetrating voice of suffering.

"If you were the lowest of all men, I could not.

I came to you in the guise of an angel, and what I have done, what woman is there that would not blush at it?
It may not be too late to save you--" "Stop!" cried Bressant, with an accent of hoarse, masculine command, such as she could not gainsay.

"It is too late!--I will not be saved! Look in my eyes, Sophie Valeyon, and tell me the name of what you see there!" Her sad, gray eyes, stern to herself, but tender and soft to him, as a cloud ready to melt in rain-drops, met his, which were alight with all the fire that an aroused and passionate spirit could kindle in them.

She saw what she had never beheld before indeed, but the meaning of which no woman ever yet mistook.