"'Rather than suffer humiliation by a French policy'" he read from her
letter, "'stay, stay, though you be buried under the walls of Mexico!'"

"But----" Jacqueline interposed. She had been taken amiss after all.

"You too bid me stay," he insisted. "But I might have known. I might
have known. One who never errs said that this would be your counsel. The
Padre is wonderful--wonderful!"

Father Fischer, of course! What else? How consummate was the snake in
his cunning! He counted on honesty and nobility in another, though
having none himself. He knew Jacqueline. He thought that, both good and
frank, she must advise the Emperor as his mother had done. Accordingly,
when Maximilian became afflicted with doubts, the priest allowed him to
go to Jacqueline. She would be an accomplice despite herself. Only his
judgment did not go quite far enough. Jacqueline had not spoken
_all_ her mind.

Imperiously she compelled Maximilian's attention. "I said ignominy,
yes," she persisted, "but I would have added that honor--the modern and
the decent--and the only courage, lies in facing this same ignominy.
Listen. If the least of impure ambition enters in your decision to
remain, then for each death in the civil war that must result, Your
Highness may hold himself to account, and so be held by history. Now,"
she went on, unmoved by the fact that he had winced, "the question
remains with Your Highness--does aught besides honor hold you to stay?"

To himself he answered as she spoke, and guilt confessed mounted his
brow.

"But there," she said, "Father Fischer will interpret the will of the
Almighty. Before Your Imperial Highness retires to-night, my words will
be forgotten."

The lash fell on flesh already raw and smarting. To predict that he
would change yet again, when to change he branded himself a wilful
murderer--no! That was more than he could endure. She must not think
that of him. He held out his hand. "Jeanne!" he murmured imploringly.

"Don't!" she cried, "Don't call me that!"

Then she bit her lip, and her fury turned against herself. "Jeanne" was
feminine and French for "John," which was masculine and--American. This
important discovery she had made months ago when riding beside a man
whose horse was "Demijohn." As a girl in love, she had found a cozy joy
in their names being the same. But for that very reason any recollection
of it, since then, was the less to be borne.

Blushing indignantly, she saw that Maximilia