Her hands were like
her uncle's: but they were more in place at the end of her young arms,
and looked infinitely soft and caressing. He remembered how her blue
eyes had shone upon him, full of anger, pity, and innocence. And the
more he dwelt on her perfections, the uglier death looked, and the
more deeply was he smitten with penitence at her continued tears. Now
he felt that no man could have the courage to leave a world which
contained so beautiful a creature; and now he would have given forty
minutes of his last hour to have unsaid his cruel speech.
Suddenly a hoarse and ragged peal of cockcrow rose to their ears from
the dark valley below the windows. And this shattering noise in the
silence of all around was like a light in a dark place, and shook them
both out of their reflections.
"Alas, can I do nothing to help you?" she said, looking up.
"Madam," replied Denis, with a fine irrelevancy, "if I have said
anything to wound you, believe me, it was for your own sake and not
for mine."
She thanked him with a tearful look.
"I feel your position cruelly," he went on. "The world has been
bitter, hard on you. Your uncle is a disgrace to mankind. Believe me,
madam, there is no young gentleman in all France but would be glad of
my opportunity, to die in doing you a momentary service."
"I know already that you can be very brave and generous," she
answered.
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