The statesman, who had passed all his short life at school and college,
was frightened, and took hold of her and pulled her, and cried,
"Oh! don't, Jacintha; you will kill yourself, you will die; this is
frightful: help here! help!" Jacintha put her hand to his mouth, and,
without leaving off her hysterics, gasped out, "Ah! don't expose me."
So then he didn't know what to do; but he seized a tumbler and filled
it with wine, and forced it between her lips. All she did was to bite a
piece out of the glass as clean as if a diamond had cut it. This did
her a world of good: destruction of sacred household property gave her
another turn. "There, I've broke your glass now," she cried, with a
marvellous change of tone; and she came-to and cried quietly like a
reasonable person, with her apron to her eyes.
When Edouard saw she was better, he took her hand and said proudly,
"Secret for secret. I choose this moment to confide to you that I love
Mademoiselle Rose de Beaurepaire. Love her? I did love her; but now you
tell me she is poor and in distress, I adore her.
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