"
This was the end of M. Lenoble's wooing. He could not speak of his love
any more while the sound of Montague Kingdon's name had but lately died
away on Susan Meynell's lips. He had taken her to himself, with all her
sorrows and sins, in the hour in which he snatched her from death; and
between these two there was no need of passionate protestations or
sentimental rapture.
M. Lenoble speedily discovered that the law had made no provision for the
necessities of a chivalrous young student eager to unite himself with a
friendless foreign woman, who could not produce so much as one of the
thirty witnesses required to establish her identity. A very little
consideration showed Gustave that a marriage between him and Susan
Meynell in France was an impossibility. He explained this, and asked her
if she would trust him as she had trusted Montague Kingdon. In Jersey the
marriage might easily be solemnised. Would she go with him to Jersey, to
stay there so long as the English law required for the solemnization of
their union?
"Why should you take so much trouble about me?" said Susan, in her low
sad voice. "You are too good, too generous. I am not worth so much care
and thought from you."
"Does that mean that you will not trust me, Susan?"
"I would trust you with my life in a desert, thousands of miles from the
rest of mankind--with a happier life than mine.
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