"How can we help it?" asked Camille.
"You must and shall help it, somehow," retorted this little tyrant.
"Mamma suspects. She has given me such a cross-examination, my blood
runs cold. No, on second thoughts, kiss her again, and you may both be
as happy as you like; for I am going to tell mamma all, and no power on
earth shall hinder me."
"Rose," said Camille, "you are a sensible girl; and I always said so."
But Josephine was horrified. "What! tell my mother that within a month
of my husband's death?"--
"Don't say your husband," put in Camille wincing; "the priest never
confirmed that union; words spoken before a magistrate do not make a
marriage in the sight of Heaven."
Josephine cut him short. "Amongst honorable men and women all oaths are
alike sacred: and Heaven's eye is in a magistrate's room as in a church.
A daughter of Beaurepaire gave her hand to him, and called herself
his wife. Therefore, she was his wife: and is his widow. She owes him
everything; the house you are all living in among the rest. She ought
to be proud of her brief connection with that pure, heroic spirit, and,
when she is so little noble as to disown him, then say that gratitude
and justice have no longer a place among mankind.
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