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Rh I feel for you what I ought only to feel for God; a mixture of respect, love, obedience … As a matter of fact, I don't know what you inspire me with … If you were to tell me to stab the gaoler with a knife, the crime would be committed before I had given it a thought. Explain this very clearly to me before I leave you. I want to see down to the bottom of my heart; for we shall take leave of each other in two months … By the bye, shall we take leave of each other?" she said to him with a smile.

"I take back my words," exclaimed Julien, getting up, "I shall not appeal from my death sentence, if you try, either by poison, knife, pistol, charcoal, or any other means whatsoever, to put an end to your life, or make any attempt upon it."

Madame de Rênal's expression suddenly changed. The most lively tenderness was succeeded by a mood of deep meditation.

"Supposing we were to die at once," she said to him.

"Who knows what one will find in the other life," answered Julien, "perhaps torment, perhaps nothing at all. Cannot we pass two delicious months together? Two months means a good many days. I shall never have been so happy."

"You will never have been so happy?"

"Never," repeated Julien ecstatically, "and I am talking to you just as I should talk to myself. May God save me from exaggerating."

"Words like that are a command," she said with a timid melancholy smile.

"Well, you will swear by the love you have for me, to make no attempt either direct or indirect, upon your life … remember," he added, "that you must live for my son, whom Mathilde will hand over to lackeys as soon as she is marquise de Croisenois"

"I swear," she answered coldly, "but I want to take away your notice of appeal, drawn and signed by yourself. I will go myself to M. the procureur-general."

"Be careful, you will compromise yourself."

"After having taken the step of coming to see you in your prison, I shall be a heroine of local scandal for Besançon, and the whole of Franche-Comté," she said very dejectedly. "I have crossed the bounds of austere modesty … I