"
"You seem to think, madam," replied Denis, "that I stand much in
fear of death."
"Oh no, no," she said, "I see you are no poltroon. It is for my
own sake - I could not bear to have you slain for such a scruple."
"I am afraid," returned Denis, "that you underrate the difficulty,
madam. What you may be too generous to refuse, I may be too proud
to accept. In a moment of noble feeling towards me, you forgot
what you perhaps owe to others."
He had the decency to keep his eyes upon the floor as he said this,
and after he had finished, so as not to spy upon her confusion.
She stood silent for a moment, then walked suddenly away, and
falling on her uncle's chair, fairly burst out sobbing. Denis was
in the acme of embarrassment. He looked round, as if to seek for
inspiration, and seeing a stool, plumped down upon it for something
to do. There he sat, playing with the guard of his rapier, and
wishing himself dead a thousand times over, and buried in the
nastiest kitchen-heap in France. His eyes wandered round the
apartment, but found nothing to arrest them. There were such wide
spaces between the furniture, the light fell so baldly and
cheerlessly over all, the dark outside air looked in so coldly
through the windows, that he thought he had never seen a church so
vast, nor a tomb so melancholy. The regular sobs of Blanche de
Maletroit measured out the time like the ticking of a clock.
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