Did you not observe my agitation when you first
mentioned the name of La Tournoire, and said that you would take me to
him. I wonder that you did not hear my heart say, 'That is the man I am
to betray!' And how bitter, yet sweet, it was to hear you commiserate my
dejection, which was due in part to the shame of the treacherous task I
had undertaken. It seemed to me that you ought to guess its cause, yet
you attributed it all to other sources. What a weight was on me while we
rode towards Clochonne, the knowledge that I was to betray the man whom I
then thought your friend,--the friend of the gentleman who protected me
and was so solicitous for my happiness! How glad I was when you told me
the man was no great friend of yours, that you would sacrifice him for
the sake of the woman you loved! After all, I thought you might not
loathe me when you should learn that I had betrayed him! Yet, to perform
my task in your presence, to make him love me--for I was to do that, if
needs be and it could be done--while you were with me, seemed impossible.
This was the barrier between us, the fact that I had engaged to betray
your friend, and you can understand now why I begged that you would leave
me. How could I play the Delilah in your sight? It had been hard enough
to question you about La Tournoire's hiding-place. And when I learned
that you were La Tournoire himself, whom I had already half betrayed in
sending Pierre to La Chatre with an account of your hiding-place; that
you whom I already loved--why should I not confess it?--were the man
whom I was to pretend to love; that you who already loved me were the man
whom I was to betray by making him love me,--oh, what a moment that was,
a moment when all hope died and despair overwhelmed me! Had I known from
the first that you were he, I might have guarded against loving you--"
"And well it is," said I, interrupting, "that for a jest and a surprise I
had kept that knowledge from you! Else you might indeed have--"
"Oh, do not think of it!" And she shuddered.
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