o knew not of what she was speaking, judged it prudent
to say nothing.

"Yes--I must know," she went on, still brusquely, "you will tell me
where she is. I will go there. And afterwards I will return to the
Escorial to see my father--Philip the King. Meantime I will speak to the
Duke of Err, and to his mother, as well as to the Viceroy Doria. You
shall abide in Pilate's House down there, where is a prison garden----"

"And my friend?" said John d'Albret.

The girl hesitated a little, and then held out her hand. The young man
took it.

"And your friend!" she said. "There in Pilate's House you must wait, you
two, till I see--till I know that she is worth the sacrifice."

Once again she laughed a little, seeing a wave of joy or perhaps some
more complex emotion sweep over John's face.

"Ah," she cried, with a returning trace of her first bitterness, "you
are certain that she is worthy. Doubtless so for you! But as the
sacrifice is mine--I also must be certain--ah, very certain. For there
is no back-going. It is the end of all things for Valentine la Nina."

She laughed little and low, like one on the verge of hysterics. A nerve
twitched irregularly in her throat under her chin to the right. The pink
came out brighter to her cheek. It was a terrible laugh to hear in that
still place. And the mirthlessness of it--it struck the Abbe John cold.

"This shall be my revenge," she said, fixing him, with flame in her
honey-coloured eyes; "long after, long--oh, so--so long after"--she
waved her arm--"you will know! And you will see that, however much she
has loved you, hers was the love which takes. But mine--ah, mine is
different. Mine is the love which gives--the only true woman's
love--without scant, without measure, without bounds of good or evil,
without thought of recompense, or hope of reward. Love net, unselfish,
boundless, encompassing as the sea, and like a fountain sealed within
the heart of a woman. And then--then you shall remember that when ye
might--ye would not--ah, ye would not!"

A sob tore her throat.

"But one day, or it may be through all eternity, you shall know which is
the greater love, and you shall wish--no, you are a man, you will be
content with the lesser, the more comprehensible, the goodwife warming
her feet by the fire over against yours. There is your ideal. While
I--I--would have carried you beyond the stars!"

The Abbe John took a step nearer her. He had some vague notion of
comforting