He still loved Agatha, though his love
was, as it were, mingled with hatred; he still wished to possess her,
but he did not care how disagreeable, how horrible to herself might be
the means by which he accomplished his object. He entertained ideas of
seizing upon her person, taking her from Durbelliere, and marrying her
during the confusion which the Revolution had caused in the country. At
first he had no distinct idea of treachery towards the royalists with
whom he had sided; though vague thoughts of bringing the soldiers of the
Convention to Durbelliere, in the dead of night, had at different times
entered his mind, he had never reduced such thoughs to a palpable plan,
nor had he ever endeavoured to excuse to himself the iniquity of such
a scheme, as a man does when he resolves to sacrifice his honour and his
honesty to his passions.
It was in the council-room at Saumur that he first felt a desire to
betray the friends of his life; it was in the moment of his hot anger,
after leaving it, that he determined to put into effect the plan which
he had already conceived; it was then that insane ambition and selfish
love prompted him to forget every feeling which he had hitherto
recognized as honourable, and to commit himself to a deed which would
make it impossible that he should ever be reconciled with the companions
of his youth.
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