Collected Works (Vol. III)

80 A DRAMATIC VERSION OF BLANCHE. Oh, sir, do not be more cruel than our fate itself—to speak as if I could think so. DENYS. [Petzes himself.] You will perhaps sigh once—TI hope you will sigh once !—and then you will forget, and laugh, and go back to your old life. Ah! what can I think of all this? BLANCHE. I know what you must think, Monsieur de Beaulieu; you dare not say it—but you wrong me. Oh! before God, you wrong me. DENYS. [Distressed.| Don’t! Don’t! BLANCHE, Do yield: do marry me! Let me tell you how it all came about—you are so brave and young and handsome—I will not have you die. DENYS. You seem to think I stand in great fear of death. BLANCHE. [Flushes at thts boyish rudeness.) But J will not have you die. I zw22/ marry you. [With determination, DENYS. [Aside.} Here is love’s language—and Lord knows who’s meaning. [A/ozd.] What you are too generous to refuse I may be too proud to accept. BLANCHE. [Controls her indignation.] Osir! listen! I have no mother—no father. I am very lonely—how can I tell you? [Goes over and crouches on chair half-sobbing.| Threemonths ago a young man began to stand near me in church. I—I could see I pleased him— and that pleased me; so I listened, when, as I went down the aisle, he whispered me such words as I passed—like poetry, they were so beautiful. I didn’t know it was any harm—I let him write me letters, I was so glad that any one should love me. And yesterday he asked me to meet him on the stairs, so that he might tell me with his own voice; but Uncle Alain found the letter, and oh! oh! [Crzes.] DENYS. Poor child! [.4s%de.] By heaven, I do love her. Was ever a man so ill-placed to win a woman? BLANCHE. I would not have answered it—oh ! Mon- sieur, I swear to you. I thought no wrong. But uncle shut me up in the chapel, and said I was to be married to-morrow—and—and —set a trap for you. DENYS. Mademoiselle, I never thought ill of you, believe me ! BLANCHE, Then oh, sir! marry me! You shall never see me again, and I will—yes! I will —kill myself, and you shall be free and happy again. It can’t hurt you much to say a few words in the chapel with me— and then go back. But pray for me when I am dead. DENYS. [Strugoling long with emotion, stops himself Jrom crying and gives a forced laugh.| Here's romance, if ever there was any. Dog that I am! To laugh when your pale sweet little body is all shaken with weeping. Mademoiselle —Blanche—listen to me, and do not talk such wild nonsense. I will not