ent snort in answer, and his feet
again smote the floor as he resumed the pacing that for a moment he had
suspended. Then followed a pause, a long silence, broken only by the
Count's restless walking to and fro. At last "Why are you silent,
monsieur?" she asked in a trembling voice.

"Helas, mademoiselle, I can do nothing. I had feared that it might be
thus with you; and, if I put the question, it was in the hope that I was
wrong."

"But he, monsieur?" she exclaimed in anguish. "What of him?"

"Believe me, mademoiselle, if it lay in my power I would save him were
he never so guilty, if only that I might spare you sorrow."

He spoke with tender regret, foul hypocrite that he was!

"Oh, no, no!" she cried, and her voice was of horror and despair. "You
do not mean that--" She stopped short; and then, after a pause, it was
the Count who finished the sentence for her.

"I mean, mademoiselle, that this Lesperon must die!"

You will marvel that I let her suffer so, that I did not break down the
partition with my hands and strike that supple gentleman dead at her
feet in atonement for the anguish he was causing her. But I had a mind
to see how far he would drive this game he was engaged upon.

Again there was a spell of silence, and at last, when Mademoiselle
spoke, I was amazed at the calm voice in which she addressed him,
marvelling at the strength and courage of one so frail and childlike to
behold.

"Is your determination, indeed, irrevocable, monsieur? If you have any
pity, will you not at least let me bear my prayers and my tears to the
King?"

"It would avail you nothing. As I have said, the Languedoc rebels are
in my hands." He paused as if to let those words sink well into her
understanding; then, "If I were to set him at liberty, mademoiselle, if
I were to spirit him out of prison in the night, bribing his jailers to
keep silent and binding him by oath to quit France at once and never to
betray me, I should be, myself, guilty of high treason. Thus alone could
the thing be done, and you will see, mademoiselle, that by doing it I
should be endangering my neck."

There was an ineffable undercurrent of meaning in his words--an
intangible suggestion that he might be bribed to do all this to which he
so vaguely alluded.

"I understand, monsieur," she answered, choking--"I understand that it
would be too much to ask of you."

"It would be much, mademoiselle," he returned quickly, and his voice was
now subdue