Why did you refuse to marry him, Angelique?"
The question fairly choked her with anger. "Why did I refuse to
marry him? Francois Bigot! Do you ask me seriously that question?
Did you not tell me of your own love, and all but offer me your
hand, giving me to understand--miserable sinner that you are, or as
you think me to be--that you pledged your own faith to me, as first
in your choice, and I have done that which I had better have been
dead and buried with the heaviest pyramid of Egypt on top of me,
buried without hope of resurrection, than have done?"
Bigot, accustomed as he was to woman's upbraidings, scarcely knew
what to reply to this passionate outburst. He had spoken to her
words of love, plenty of them, but the idea of marriage had not
flashed across his mind for a moment,--not a word of that had
escaped his lips. He had as little guessed the height of
Angelique's ambition as she the depths of his craft and wickedness,
and yet there was a wonderful similarity between the characters of
both,--the same bold, defiant spirit, the same inordinate ambition,
the same void of principle in selecting means to ends,--only the one
fascinated with the lures of love, the other by the charms of wit,
the temptations of money, or effected his purposes by the rough
application of force.
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