e of
love, while you were pointing to death.... Strength and kindness always
go together. My friend, you are so strong, you will not be unkind to
a helpless woman who loves you. If I was wrong, is there no way of
obtaining forgiveness? No way of making reparation? Repentance is the
charm of love; I should like to be very charming for you. How could I,
alone among women, fail to know a woman's doubts and fears, the timidity
that it is so natural to feel when you bind yourself for life, and
know how easily a man snaps such ties? The bourgeoises, with whom you
compared me just now, give themselves, but they struggle first. Very
well--I struggled; but here I am!--Ah! God, he does not hear me!" she
broke off, and wringing her hands, she cried out "But I love you! I am
yours!" and fell at Armand's feet.

"Yours! yours! my one and only master!"

Armand tried to raise her.

"Madame, it is too late! Antoinette cannot save the Duchesse de
Langeais. I cannot believe in either. Today you may give yourself;
tomorrow, you may refuse. No power in earth or heaven can insure me the
sweet constancy of love. All love's pledges lay in the past; and now
nothing of that past exists."

The light behind the curtain blazed up so brightly, that the Duchess
could not help turning her head; this time she distinctly saw the three
masked figures.

"Armand," she said, "I would not wish to think ill of you. Why are those
men there? What are you going to do to me?"

"Those men will be as silent as I myself with regard to the thing which
is about to be done. Think of them simply as my hands and my heart. One
of them is a surgeon----"

"A surgeon! Armand, my friend, of all things, suspense is the hardest
to bear. Just speak; tell me if you wish for my life; I will give it to
you, you shall not take it----"

"Then you did not understand me? Did I not speak just now of justice?
To put an end to your misapprehensions," continued he, taking up a small
steel object from the table, "I will now explain what I have decided
with regard to you."

He held out a Lorraine cross, fastened to the tip of a steel rod.

"Two of my friends at this very moment are heating another cross, made
on this pattern, red-hot. We are going to stamp it upon your forehead,
here between the eyes, so that there will be no possibility of hiding
the mark with diamonds, and so avoiding people's questions. In short,
you shall bear on your forehead the brand of infamy which your