heart.

"Madame, madame!" he cried. "Wait! Hear me."

She paused, half-turned, and looked at him over her shoulder, scorn in
her glance, a sneer on her scarlet mouth, insolence in every line of
her.

"I think, monsieur, that I have heard a little more than enough," said
she. "I am assured, at least, that in you I have but a fair-weather
friend, a poor lipserver."

"Ah, not that, madame," he cried, and his voice was stricken. "Say not
that. I would serve you as would none other in all this world--you know
it, Marquise; you know it."

She faced about, and confronted him, her smile a trifle broader, as if
amusement were now blending with her scorn.

"It is easy to protest. Easy to say, 'I will die for you,' so long as
the need for such a sacrifice be remote. But let me do no more than
ask a favour, and it is, 'What of my good name, madame? What of my
seneschalship? Am I to be gaoled or hanged to pleasure you?' Faugh!" she
ended, with a toss of her splendid head. "The world is peopled with your
kind, and I--alas! for a woman's intuitions--had held you different from
the rest."

Her words were to his soul as a sword of fire might have been to his
flesh. They scorched and shrivelled it. He saw himself as she would have
him see himself--a mean, contemptible craven; a coward who made big talk
in times of peace, but faced about and vanished into hiding at the first
sign of danger. He felt himself the meanest, vilest thing a-crawl upon
this sinful earth, and she--dear God!--had thought him different from
the ruck. She had held him in high esteem, and behold, how short had he
not fallen of all her expectations! Shame and vanity combined to work a
sudden, sharp revulsion in his feelings.

"Marquise," he cried, "you say no more than what is just. But punish
me no further. I meant not what I said. I was beside myself. Let me
atone--let my future actions make amends for that odious departure from
my true self."

There was no scorn now in her smile; only an ineffable tenderness,
beholding which he felt it in his heart to hang if need be that he might
continue high in her regard. He sprang forward, and took the hand she
extended to him.

"I knew, Tressan," said she, "that you were not yourself, and that when
you bethought you of what you had said, my valiant, faithful friend
would not desert me."

He stooped over her hand, and slobbered kisses upon her unresponsive
glove.

"Madame," said he, "you may count upon me. Thi