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322 "I will send for Père Silas; on the spot I will send for him," she threatened pertinaciously.

"Femme!" cried the professor, not now in his deep tones, but in his highest and most excited key, "Femme! sortez a l'instant!"

He was roused, and I loved him in his wrath with a passion beyond what I had yet felt.

"What you do is wrong," pursued Madame; "it is an act characteristic of men of your unreliable, imaginative temperament; a step impulsive, injudicious, inconsistent—a proceeding vexatious, and not estimable in the view of persons of steadier and more resolute character."

"You know not what I have of steady and resolute in me," said he, "but you shall see; the event shall teach you. Modeste," he continued less fiercely, "be gentle, be pitying, be a woman; look at this poor face, and relent. You know I am your friend, and the friend of your friends; in spite of your taunts, you well and deeply know I may be trusted. Of sacrificing myself I made no difficulty, but my heart is pained by what I see; it must have and give solace. Leave me!"

This time, in the "leave me," there was an intonation so bitter and so imperative, I wondered that