e," she sobbed; "I will be content, if you
will only tell me."

"I do not know," said John d'Albret, driven into a corner; "perhaps I
might--if I had seen you first."

To the young man it seemed an easy thing to say--a necessary thing,
indeed. For, coming fresh from the fear and the place of torment, he was
glad to say anything not to be sent thither again.

"But say it," she cried, coming nearer and clasping his arm hard, "say
it all--not that you might, but that you would--with the same love that
goes easily to death, that I--I--I might escape. Oh, for me, I would go
to a thousand deaths if only I knew--surely--surely, that one man in the
world would do as much for me!"

But the Abbe John had reached his limit. Not even to escape the Place of
the Eyes could he deny his love, or affirm that he could ever have loved
to the death any but his little Claire.

"I saw her, and I loved!" he said simply--"that is all I know. Had I
seen you, I might have loved--that also I do not know. More I cannot
say. But be assured that, if I had loved you, not knowing the other, I
should have counted, for your sake, my poor life but as a leaf,
wind-blown, a petal fallen in the way."

Valentine la Nina nervously crumpled the glorious red and fleshy
blossoms of the pomegranate clusters in her fingers, till they fell in
blood-drops on the floor.

"You are noble," she said; "I knew it when I saw you at Collioure on the
hillside--more, a prince in your own land, near to the throne even. So
am I--and Philip the King himself would not deny me. He is your
country's enemy. Yet at my request he would stay his hand. He must fight
the English. He must subdue the Low Countries. That is his oath. But if
you will--if you will--he would aid the Bearnais, or better still, you
yourself to a throne, and give me--who can say what?--perhaps this very
Roussillon for a dower. For I am close of kin to the King. He would
acknowledge me as such. I have vowed a vow, but now it is almost paid;
and if it were not I would go to the Pope himself, though I walked every
step of the road to Rome!"

"I cannot--I cannot----" cried John d'Albret. "Thank God, I am not of
the first-born of kings, whose hands are put up to the highest bidder.
Where I have loved, there will I wed or not at all!"

"Ah, cruel!" cried Valentine la Nina, stamping her foot--"cruel, not
only to me, but to her whom you say you love. Think you she will be safe
from the Society, from the Holy O