Page:Stories by Foreign Authors (French II).djvu/69

64 It was the first time she had tutoyéed him. He caught her, leaning out, and lifted her into the room. There she had a fit of tears stifling her sobs, so as not to be heard. Then, by a supreme effort, she calmed herself.

"You are guarded?" she asked, in a low voice.

Dominique, still dumfounded at seeing her thus, made a simple sign, pointing to his door. They heard a snoring on the other side; the sentinel must have given way to drowsiness, and lain down on the ground, across the doorway, thinking that, in this way, the prisoner could not get out.

"You must run away," she went on rapidly. "I have come to implore you to run away, and to say good-bye."

But he did not seem to hear her. He kept repeating:

"How, it's you, it's you! . . . how you frightened me! You might have killed yourself."

He took her hands, he kissed them.

"How I love you, Françoise! . . . You are as brave as you are good. I only had one fear, that of dying without seeing you once more. . . . But you are here, and now they can shoot me. When I have had a quarter of an hour with you I shall be ready."

Little by little he had drawn her closer to him, and she rested her head upon his shoulder.