The Regent's Daughter. Dumas Alexandre

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      "Of his deep love for me."

      Gaston started.

      "He swore to me that in future I should be happy; that there should be no more uncertainty as to my fate, for that he would despise all those considerations which had induced him as yet to disown me as a daughter."

      "Words, words; but what proof did he give you? Pardon me these questions, Helene. I dread misfortune. I wish that for a time your angel's innocence could give place to the sharpness and infernal sagacity of a fiend; you would then understand me. I should not need to subject you to this interrogatory, which now is so necessary."

      "I do not understand your question, Gaston. I do not know how to reply to you."

      "Did he show you much affection?"

      "Yes."

      "But in the darkness, when he wished to speak to you?"

      "He took my hand, and his trembled the most."

      Gaston clenched his hands with rage.

      "He embraced you paternally, did he not?"

      "He gave me a single kiss on the forehead, which I received on my knees."

      "Helene!" he cried, "my fears were not groundless; you are betrayed – you are the victim of a snare. Helene, this man who conceals himself, who fears the light, who calls you his child, is not your father."

      "Gaston, you distress me."

      "Helene, angels might envy your innocence; but on earth all is abused, even angels are insulted, profaned, by men. This man, whom I will know, whom I will seize and force to have confidence in your love and honor, shall tell me – if he be not the vilest of beings – whether I am to call him father, or kill him as a wretch!"

      "Gaston, your brain is wandering; what can lead you to suspect such treachery? And, since you arouse my suspicions, since you hold a light over those ignoble labyrinths of the human heart which I refused to contemplate, I will speak to you with the same freedom. Was I not in this man's power? Is not this house his? Are not the people by whom I am surrounded devoted to his orders? Gaston, if you love me, you will ask my pardon for what you have thought and said of my father."

      Gaston was in despair.

      "Do not destroy one of the purest and holiest joys I have ever tasted. Do not poison the happiness of a life which I have often wept to think was solitary and abandoned, without other affection than that of which Heaven forbids us to be lavish. Let my filial ties compensate for the remorse which I sometimes feel for loving you almost to idolatry."

      "Helene, forgive me," cried Gaston. "Yes, you are right; I sully your pure joys by my contact, and it may be the noble affection of your father, but in Heaven's name, Helene, give some heed to the fears of my experience and my love. Criminal passions often speculate on innocent credulity. The argument you use is weak. To show at once a guilty love would be unlike a skillful corrupter; but to win you by a novel luxury pleasing to your age, to accustom you gradually to new impressions, to win you at last by persuasion, is a sweeter victory than that of violence. Helene, listen to my prudence of five-and-twenty years – I say my prudence, for it is my love that speaks, that love which you should see so humble, so devoted, so ready to accept a father whom I knew to be really your parent."