ough men saw in him
only a soldier of the empire, only a base-born trooper, beneath her as
Riom beneath the daughter of D'Orleans. She was of a brave nature, of a
great nature, of a daring courage, and of a superb generosity. Abhorring
dishonor, full of glory in the stainless history of her race, and
tenacious of the dignity and of the magnitude of her House, she yet
was too courageous and too haughty a woman not to be capable of braving
calumny, if conscious of her own pure rectitude beneath it; not to
be capable of incurring false censure, if encountered in the path of
justice and of magnanimity. It was possible, even on herself it
dawned as possible, that so great might become her compassion and her
tenderness for this man that she would, in some distant future, when the
might of his love and the severity of his suffering should prevail with
her, say to him:

"Keep your secret from the world as you will. Prove your innocence only
to me; let me and the friend of your youth alone know your name and your
rights. And knowing all, knowing you myself to be hero and martyr in
one, I shall not care what the world thinks of you, what the world says
of me. I will be your wife; I have lands, and riches, and honors, and
greatness enough to suffice for us both."

If ever she loved him exceedingly, she would become capable of this
sacrifice from the strength, and the graciousness, and the fearlessness
of her nature, and such love was not so distant from her as she thought.

Outside her tent there was a peculiar mingling of light and shadow; of
darkness from the moonless and now cloud-covered sky, of reddened warmth
from the tall, burning pine-boughs thrust into the soil in lieu of other
illumination. The atmosphere was hot from the flames, and chilly with
the breath of the night winds; it was oppressively still, though from
afar off the sounds of laughter in the camp still echoed, and near
at hand the dull and steady tramp of the sentinels fell on the hard,
parched soil. Into that blended heat and cold, dead blackness and
burning glare, he reeled out from her presence; drunk with pain as
deliriously as men grow drunk with raki. The challenge rang on the air:

"Who goes there?"

He never heard it. Even the old, long-accustomed habits of a soldier's
obedience were killed in him.

"Who goes there?" the challenge rang again.

Still he never heard, but went on blindly. From where the tents stood
there was a stronger breadth