"
"Ah! Monsieur de La Briere," cried the colonel, as the young man
approached them along the garden path in which they were walking, "I
hope you are going to this hunt?"
"No, colonel," answered Ernest. "I have come to take leave of you and
of mademoiselle; I return to Paris--"
"You have no curiosity," said Modeste, interrupting, and looking at
him.
"A wish--that I cannot expect--would suffice to keep me," he replied.
"If that is all, you must stay to please me; I wish it," said the
colonel, going forward to meet Canalis, and leaving his daughter and
La Briere together for a moment.
"Mademoiselle," said the young man, raising his eyes to hers with the
boldness of a man without hope, "I have an entreaty to make to you."
"To me?"
"Let me carry away with me your forgiveness. My life can never be
happy; it must be full of remorse for having lost my happiness--no
doubt by my own fault; but, at least,--"
"Before we part forever," said Modeste, interrupting a la Canalis, and
speaking in a voice of some emotion, "I wish to ask you one thing; and
though you once disguised yourself, I think you cannot be so base as
to deceive me now.
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