aten you
again. Fight on, with your doomed followers--brave men I admit--and
Hoche will have no mercy. I can save your peasants if you will yield
now.

"We have had enough of blood. Let us have peace. To proceed is certain
death to all, and your cause worse lost. On my honour, monseigneur, I do
this at some risk, in memory of old days. I have lost too many friends,"
he added in a lower voice.

Detricand was moved. "I thank you for this honest courtesy. I had almost
misread your letter," he answered. "Now I will speak freely. I had hoped
to leave my bones in Brittany. It was my will to fight to the last, with
my doomed followers as you call them--comrades and lovers of France I
say. And it was their wish to die with me. Till this afternoon I had no
other purpose. Willing deaths ours, for I am persuaded, for every one
of us that dies, a hundred men will rise up again and take revenge upon
this red debauch of government!"

"Have a care," said Grandjon-Larisse with sudden anger, his hand
dropping upon the handle of his sword.

"I ask leave for plain beliefs as you asked leave for plain words.
I must speak my mind, and I will say now that it has changed in this
matter of fighting and surrender. I will tell you what has changed it,"
and Detricand drew from his pocket Lorenzo Dow's journal. "It concerns
both you and me."

Grandjon-Larisse flashed a look of inquiry at him. "It concerns your
cousin the Comtesse Chantavoine and Philip d'Avranche, who calls himself
her husband and Duc de Bercy."

He opened the journal, and handed it to Grandjon-Larisse. "Read," he
said.

As Grandjon-Larisse read, an oath broke from him. "Is this authentic,
monseigneur?" he said in blank astonishment "and the woman still lives?"

Detricand told him all he knew, and added:

"A plain duty awaits us both, monsieur le general. You are concerned for
the Comtesse Chantavoine; I am concerned for the Duchy of Bercy and for
this poor lady--this poor lady in Jersey," he added.

Grandjon-Larisse was white with rage. "The upstart! The English
brigand!" he said between his teeth.

"You see now," said Detricand, "that though it was my will to die
fighting your army in the last trench--"

"Alone, I fear," interjected Grandjon-Larisse with curt admiration.

"My duty and my purpose go elsewhere," continued Detricand. "They take
me to Jersey. And yours, monsieur?"

Grandjon-Larisse beat his foot impatiently on the floor. "For the
moment I cannot s