"I swear to you here, upon my honor," continued Gilbert, "that in a week I will leave, never to return, unless you yourself beg me to remain.""What baseness! and how cleverly this little plot has been contrived; I see it all.By force of threats and violence they hope to compel me a second time to bend my knees to you and cry with clasped hands, 'Sir, in the name of Heaven, continue us the favor of your precious presence!' But this act of cowardice Ishall never commit! Rather death! rather death!""A word only," resumed Gilbert, without being discouraged."Submit me to some proof.Have you no caprice which it is in my power to satisfy?""Throw yourself at my feet," cried he impetuously; "drag yourself in the dust, kiss the ground before me, and demand pardon and mercy of me! At this price I will grant you, not my affection certainly, but my indulgence and pity.""Impossible!" answered Gilbert, shaking his head."I am like you;I should not know how to kneel, unless someone stronger than myself constrained me by violence.Oh, no! in such a performance I should lose even the hope of being some day esteemed by you.The more so as in the trial to which I wish you would subject me, I should desire to have some danger to brave, some difficulty to surmount."Stephane could not conceal his astonishment.Never in all his life had he heard language like this.Nevertheless, distrust and pride triumphed still over every other feeling.
"Since you wish it!" said he, sneering...and he drew a kid glove from one of his pockets, rubbed it between his hands and threw it to the bulldog, who caught in his teeth and kept it there.