What would be the sin of
my throwing myself into that river! I must die; I shall die of
starvation in the streets."
"No, no," cried Gustave passionately; "do you think I have dragged you
back from death to give you to loneliness and despair? My dear one, you
are mine--mine by right of this night. These arms that have kept you
from death shall shelter you,--ah, let them shelter you! These hands
shall work for you. My love, my love! you cannot tell how dear you are
to me. If there must be want or trouble for either of us, it shall come
to me first."
He had placed her on the stone bench, bewildered and unresisting, and had
seated himself by her side. The fragile figure, shivering still, even in
the mild atmosphere of the spring night, was sustained by his encircling
arm. He felt that she was his, irrevocably and entirely--given to him by
the Providence which would have seemed to have abandoned her, but for the
love it had implanted for her in this one faithful heart. His tone had
all the pleading tenderness of a lover's, but it had something more--an
authority, a sense of possession.
"Providence sent me here to save you," he said, with that gentle yet
authoritative tone; "I am your providence, am I not, dearest? Fate made
me love you--fondly, hopelessly, as I thought. Yesterday you seemed as
far away from me as those pale stars, shining up yonder--as
incomprehensible as that faint silvery mist above the rising moon--and
to-night you are my own.
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