et it
to do and it is cast aside into forgottenness or broken up as waste.
He had no liking, he had even a loathing, for the part allotted to him,
and he played it unwillingly; left to himself, he would not have played
it at all. Ursula de Vesc might have lived out her life in peace so
far as he was concerned; but Ursula de Vesc stood in his master's path,
and however distasteful it might be she must be swept aside, now that
Saxe made it possible so to do, and yet hold a semblance of justice.
Only through her could the Dauphin be reached, therefore Commines
steeled his nerves.

But to Stephen, partly for his own sake, and yet more for the memory of
the dear dead woman, his heart went out in a greater tenderness than
that of cold sympathy. Human love in the individual has been the salt
which has kept the body politic from utter rottenness. How to soften
the blow to Stephen was his thought as he paced slowly through the cool
darkness of the night: how to do more than that, how to link Stephen to
his own fortunes, which would surely rise after the successful
execution of this commission of tragedy. Slowly he paced into the
darkness, turned, and paced as slowly back again, to find Stephen
standing motionless where he had left him, his hands linked behind his
back, his shoulders squared, his face very sternly set.

"And if Jean Saxe's lies cannot be disproved? What follows then?"

"Stephen, we must save her together." He paused, but La Mothe made no
reply. What could he answer? To continue protesting her innocence
with nothing but his own word and hers to back the assertion was but
beating the air; to ask, How shall we save her? would, he thought,
tacitly admit her guilt. So there was silence until Commines went on
slowly and with an evident difficulty; he would need all his diplomacy,
he realized, all his powers of sophistry and persuasion if he was to
carry Stephen La Mothe with him along the path he proposed to follow.

"Let us face facts," he began, almost roughly. "Saxe will leave me no
alternative. No! say nothing, I know it all beforehand, and with all
my soul I wish this had not fallen to my lot. And yet, Stephen, it is
better I should be here than Tristan; Tristan has a rough way with
women. Poor lad, that hurts you, does it? Yes, I am better than
Tristan, even though Saxe leaves me no alternative. But we shall save
her together," and this time Stephen La Mothe, out of the horror of the
thought of