imagine."

Impulsively Jacqueline leaned over the desk and gave him her hand.
"Thank you," she said, in a voice that trembled unexpectedly. From that
moment, too, she abandoned tactics. The wiles of courts would avail
nothing against the primitive straightforwardness of the man before her.
It seemed, moreover, good and homely, to cast them aside. She took a
seat near the window, since he remained standing until she did, and
waited. He should speak first, and afterward, she would accept. For
there was nothing, she felt, that she could say. O rare tongue of woman,
to so respect the leash of intuitions!

As for Don Benito Juarez, he had not meant to speak at all. But knowing
her now to be not what he had thought, he spoke as he had not to any
plenipotentiary of any crowned head.

"You are a Frenchwoman, senorita," he began. "Tell me, your coming must
be explained by that?"

"Now," said Jacqueline, smiling on him cordially, "Your Excellency's
imagination is getting better."

"And you wish to save Maximilian," the Presidente stated, rather than
questioned, "because he is a victim of France."

"Because he will be considered so."

The old Roman smiled. "My dear young lady," he said, "an answer to
France is the least of my obligations. Yet you expect it, and ask for
clemency, though I deny all the great nations?"

"Oh senor, what's the use? Let him go!"

The keen black eyes regarded her quizzically. "Do you know," he said,
"this is the second time I've heard that question to-day? One of our
American officers had himself put in command of the escort for
Maximilian's two lawyers here, and now I believe he did it simply
because he too wanted to know, 'What's the use?' It was anti-climax, and
a wet blanket over the fervid eloquence of the two lawyers. But
nevertheless, he hit the one argument."

"Yes, yes!"

"In a word, why not brush aside our archduke? He's harmless, now, he's
insignificant? Why not take from him the only dignity left, that of
dying?"

"Of course, Senor Juarez! Of course!"

"And at the same time win bright renown for ourselves, instead of what
will be called harsh cruelty?"

"Surely!"

The smile vanished. The large mouth closed tightly.

"No," spoke the judge of iron. "He dies! That is the truest mercy, a
mercy to those who might otherwise follow him here. And we, senorita, we
have already suffered enough from Europe."

"But the other two?" pleaded Jacqueline. "They are Mexicans."

"They a