her face, a little paler
than it had been, but with a passionless resolve set on it.

"Philip, we do not leave our debts unpaid. Go; tell him I will be his
wife."

"His wife--now! Venetia----"

"Go!" she said briefly. "Tell him what I say."

"But what a sacrifice! In your beauty, your youth--"

"He did not count cost. Are we less generous? Go--tell him."

He was told; and was repaid. Such a light of unutterable joy burned
through the misty agony of his eyes as never, it seemed to those who
saw, had beamed before in mortal eyes. He did not once hesitate at the
acceptance of her self-surrender; he only pleaded that the marriage
ceremony should pass between them that night.

There were notaries and many priests in the great ducal household; all
was done as he desired. She consented without wavering; she had passed
her word, she would not have withdrawn it if it had been a thousand
times more bitter in its fulfillment. The honor of her house was dearer
to her than any individual happiness. This man for them had lost peace,
health, joy, strength, every hope of life; to dedicate her own life to
him, as he had vainly prayed her when in the full glow and vigor of his
manhood, was the only means by which their vast debt to him could be
paid. To so pay it was the instant choice of her high code of honor,
and of her generosity that would not be outrun. Moreover, she pitied
him unspeakably, though her heart had no tenderness for him; she had
dismissed him with cold disdain, and he had gone from her to save the
only life she loved, and was stretched a stricken, broken, helpless
wreck, with endless years of pain and weariness before him!

At midnight, in the great, dim magnificence of the state chamber where
he lay, and with the low, soft chanting of the chapel choir from afar
echoing through the incensed air, she bent her haughty head down over
his couch, and the marriage benediction was spoken over them.

His voice was faint and broken, but it had the thrill of a passionate
triumph in it. When the last words were uttered, he lay a while,
exhausted, silent; only looking ever upward at her with his dark, dreamy
eyes, in which the old love glanced so strangely through the blindness
of pain. Then he smiled as the last echo of the choral melodies died
softly on the silence.

"That is joy enough! Ah! have no fear. With the dawn you will be free
once more. Did you think that I could have taken your sacrifice? I
knew well, let