"Do I need to swear, dear?" asked the young girl, bursting into tears.
"I promise it."

"Promise it on the hour when I first said I loved you, on the hour when
you answered that I was loved!"

"On your life, on mine, on the past, on the future, on our smiles, on
our tears."

"I should die in any case, you see, Amelie, even though I had to beat my
brains out against the wall; but I should die dishonored."

"I promise you, Charles."

"Then for my second request, Amelie: if we are taken and condemned, send
me arms--arms or poison, the means of dying, any means. Coming from you,
death would be another joy."

"Far or near, free or a prisoner, living or dead, you are my master, I
am your slave; order and I obey."

"That is all, Amelie; it is simple and clear, you see, no pardon, and
the means of death."

"Simple and clear, but terrible."

"You will do it, will you not?"

"You wish me to?"

"I implore you."

"Order or entreaty, Charles, your will shall be done."

The young man held the girl, who seemed on the verge of fainting, in his
left arm, and approached his mouth to hers. But, just as their lips
were about to touch, an owl's cry was heard, so close to the window
that Amelie started and Charles raised his head. The cry was repeated a
second time, and then a third.

"Ah!" murmured Amelie, "do you hear that bird of ill-omen? We are
doomed, my friend."

But Charles shook his head.

"That is not an owl, Amelie," he said; "it is the call of our
companions. Put out the light."

Amelie blew it out while her lover opened the window.

"Even here," she murmured; "they seek you even here!"

"It is our friend and confidant, the Comte de Jayat; no one else knows
where I am." Then, leaning from the balcony, he asked: "Is it you,
Montbar?"

"Yes; is that you, Morgan?"

"Yes."

A man came from behind a clump of trees.

"News from Paris; not an instant to lose; a matter of life and death to
us all."

"Do you hear, Amelie?"

Taking the young girl in his arms, he pressed her convulsively to his
heart.

"Go," she said, in a faint voice, "go. Did you not hear him say it was a
matter of life and death for all of you?"

"Farewell, my Amelie, my beloved, farewell!"

"Oh! don't say farewell."

"No, no; au revoir!"

"Morgan, Morgan!" cried the voice of the man waiting below in the
garden.

The young man pressed his lips once more to Amelie's; then, rushing to
the window, he sprang over the balcony at a