"Why not? Aren't you an orphan, alone on earth, since you lost the good people who adopted you?"
Isaure did not reply for some time, but at last she said, lowering her eyes:
"Yes, I am an orphan, I have no parents."
"Well! Who could interpose any obstacle to our happiness? Who could prevent you from being mine, from never parting from me any more?"
Isaure seemed deeply agitated; after glancing about her with an expression of dread, she put out her hand, pointed to the White House, and said to Edouard in a very low tone:
Edouard was thunderstruck; he gazed in amazement at the White House, to which she pointed, then turned his eyes anxiously upon the girl again; he seemed to await some further explanation. But Isaure said no more.
"What!" said Edouard at last, "you can never go away from that deserted house? Pray, what powerful reason compels you to remain near that house?"
"I cannot tell," replied Isaure, under her breath.
"What is this mystery, this obstacle which you conceal from me? You have secrets from me, when I propose to devote my life to you, to unite myself to you by indissoluble bonds! Oh! speak, I implore you, conceal nothing from me!"
"I cannot speak. Pray, forgive me for causing you pain! If it rested only with me----"
"Dear Isaure! is it some promise, some oath that you gave your adopted mother? Perhaps she ordered you never to leave these mountains. But reflect that, if your parents were alive, they could not disapprove of my love! This house at which you point so mysteriously has long been uninhabited; it does not belong to you, because if I am to believe what I have been told, your adopted father sold it shortly after taking you into his family; and you cannot go away from it, you say! Come, confess that there is underneath all this some absurd, inconsiderate promise. Tell me the whole story, and I will soon satisfy you that you are entirely at liberty to dispose of your future."
"At liberty to dispose of my future!" replied the girl earnestly; "oh, no! I am not!"
"Why, in whose power are you then?" cried Edouard; "who can have any authority over you?"
Isaure looked down and made no reply. Edouard's brow darkened; a thousand suspicions sprang up in his mind; the love which gleamed in his eyes gave place to distrust and anger. He rose, walked away from the girl, who remained seated at the foot of the tree, then said at last in a tone which he tried to make indifferent.