ented to my proposals.

Marsac was on his way to Spain. His sister, he told us, awaited him
at Carcassonne. Lesperon should set out with him at once, and in
forty-eight hours they would be beyond the reach of the King's anger.

"I have a favour to ask of you, Monsieur de Marsac," said I, rising;
for our business was at an end. "It is that if you should have an
opportunity of communicating with Mademoiselle de Lavedan, you will
let her know that I am not--not the Lesperon that is betrothed to your
sister."

"I will inform her of it, monsieur," he answered readily; and then, of a
sudden, a look of understanding and of infinite pity came into his eyes.
"My God!" he cried.

"What is it, monsieur?" I asked, staggered by that sudden outcry.

"Do not ask me, monsieur, do not ask me. I had forgotten for the moment,
in the excitement of all these revelations. But--" He stopped short.

"Well, monsieur?"

He seemed to ponder a moment, then looking at me again with that same
compassionate glance, "You had better know," said he. "And yet--it is a
difficult thing to tell you. I understand now much that I had not dreamt
of. You--you have no suspicion of how you came to be arrested?"

"For my alleged participation in the late rebellion?"

"Yes, yes. But who gave the information of your whereabouts? Who told
the Keeper of the Seals where you were to be found?"

"Oh, that?" I answered easily. "Why, I never doubted it. It was the
coxcomb Saint-Eustache. I whipped him--"

I stopped short. There was something in Marsac's black face, something
in his glance, that forced the unspoken truth upon my mind.

"Mother in heaven!" I cried. "Do you mean that it was Mademoiselle de
Lavedan?"

He bowed his head in silence. Did she hate me, then, so much as that?
Would nothing less than my death appease her, and had I utterly crushed
the love that for a little while she had borne me, that she could bring
herself to hand me over to the headsman?

God! What a stab was that! It turned me sick with grief--aye, and with
some rage not against her, oh, not against her; against the fates that
had brought such things to pass.

I controlled myself while their eyes were yet upon me. I went to the
door and held it open for them, and they, perceiving something of my
disorder, were courteous enough to omit the protracted leave-takings
that under other auspices there might have been. Marsac paused a moment
on the threshold as if he would have offered