od as many are,
he would have no right to vengeance; as it is, he is a gentleman, a
hero, a martyr; may he not forget for one hour that he is a slave?
Look you! I have seen him so tried that I told him--I, who love my army
better than any living thing under the sun--that I would forgive him if
he forgot duty and dealt with his tyrant as man to man. And he always
held his soul in patience. Why? Not because he feared death--he desired
it; but because he loved his comrades, and suffered in peace and in
silence lest, through him, they should be led into evil----"

His eyes softened as he heard her; but the inflexibility of his voice
never altered.

"It is useless to argue with me," he said briefly; "I never change a
sentence."

"But I say that you shall!" As the audacious words were flung forth, she
looked him full in the eyes, while her voice rang with its old imperious
oratory. "You are a great chief; you are as a monarch here; you hold the
gifts and the grandeur of the Empire; but, because of that--because you
are as France in my eyes--I swear, by the name of France, that you shall
see justice done to him; after death, if you cannot in life. Do you know
who he is--this man whom his comrades will shoot down at sunrise as they
shoot down the murderer and the ravisher in their crimes?"

"He is a rebellious soldier; it is sufficient."

"He is not! He is a man who vindicated a woman's honor; he is a man who
suffers in a brother's place; he is an aristocrat exiled to a martyrdom;
he is a hero who has never been greater than he will be great in
his last hour. Read that! What you refuse to justice, and mercy, and
courage, and guiltlessness, you will grant, maybe, to your Order."

She forced into his hand the written statement of Cecil's name and
station. All the hot blood was back in her cheek, all the fiery passion
back in her eyes. She lashed this potent ruler with the scourge of her
scorn as she had lashed a drunken horde of plunderers with her whip. She
was reckless of what she said; she was conscious only of one thing--the
despair that consumed her.

The French Marshal glanced his eye on the fragment, carelessly and
coldly. As he saw the words, he started, and read on with wondering
eagerness.

"Royallieu!" he muttered--"Royallieu!"

The name was familiar to him; he it was who, when he had murmured, "That
man has the seat of the English Guards," as a Chasseur d'Afrique had
passed him, had been ignorant that in th