"It is
this--I am come to ask you to marry me, Mr. Calvert, that by becoming an
American subject I may save my brother. We--we have just been to obtain
a passport for him to leave the city--he is to be accused in the
Assembly to-morrow," she says, rapidly and breathlessly. "A passport for
Monsieur d'Azay is refused unconditionally, but one is promised for the
brother of Madame Calvert, the American." She was no longer pale. A
burning blush was dyeing her whole face crimson, and she drew still
farther back into the shadow of the window. She laid one hand on the
velvet curtain to steady herself.
Calvert gazed at her in unspeakable surprise. For an instant a wild hope
awoke within him, only to die. She had come but to save her brother, as
she had said, and the painfulness of her duty was only too apparent.
"And--and who has imposed this strange condition?" he says, at length,
quietly, mastering himself.
"Your servant Bertrand, who is all-powerful with Danton and who, he
promises, shall obtain the passport by six this evening."
"Were I not wounded and weak from fever, Madame, believe me, by that
hour he would deeply repent having caused you this humiliation," says
Calvert, bitterly.
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