"You are not in earnest!"
"May I expire at your feet if I am not! Do you want me to sign the oath with my blood?"
"Rise," she said in a broken voice. "Have I at last found a man to love me and compensate me for all the abuse that has been showered on my head? A thousand times I thank you, not for what you are doing for me, but for the balm you pour on my wounded spirit. Even if you were to say to me now, 'After all, I am obliged to give you up' the pleasure of knowing you esteem me would make up for all the rest. It would be another happy memory to treasure along with my memory of our love, which was ineffaceable, although you so ungratefully suspected me of having deceived you."
The treasurer appeared fairly intoxicated with joy. He indulged in a thousand ridiculous extravagances and e
