Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 2).djvu/24

 "Yes, (replied Madeline) to your connexions, if their feelings are at all like mine. Oh, de Sevignie! if you really regard my tranquillity, promise, ere we part, to try and conquer your dejection, and to give up your solitary rambles; the idea of the dangers to which you expose yourself by them terrifies me."

"Ere we part, (said de Sevignie, who seemed only to have attended to those words) Oh! what a death-like chill comes over my heart at the idea of doing so. Never—never, Madeline, if honour, if gratitude permitted, would we separate."

"If they are combined against us (cried Madeline) it were not only foolish but criminal to think of acting otherwise than we are now doing."

"They are! (exclaimed de Sevignie) for would it be not dishonourable, ungrateful in the extreme, to attempt leading the daughter of Clermont—he to whose compassionate care, under heaven, I perhaps owe the preservation of my life; would it not, I