arguments, the
irrefutable logic of my payment. She denied me, and in denying me she
denied herself, for that she had loved me she had herself told me, and
that she could love me again I was assured, if she would but see the
thing in the light of reason and of justice.

"Roxalanne, I did not come to Lavedan to say 'Good-bye' to you. I seek
from you a welcome, not a dismissal."

"Yet my dismissal is all that I can give. Will you not take my hand? May
we not part in friendly spirit?"

"No, we may not; for we do not part at all."

It was as the steel of my determination striking upon the flint of hers.
She looked up to my face for an instant; she raised her eyebrows in
deprecation; she sighed, shrugged one shoulder, and, turning on her
heel, moved towards the door.

"Anatole shall bring you refreshment ere you go," she said in a very
polite and formal voice.

Then I played my last card. Was it for nothing that I had flung away
my wealth? If she would not give herself, by God, I would compel her
to sell herself. And I took no shame in doing it, for by doing it I was
saving her and saving myself from a life of unhappiness.

"Roxalanne!" I cried. The imperiousness of my voice arrested and
compelled her perhaps against her very will.

"Monsieur?" said she, as demurely as you please.

"Do you know what you are doing?".

"But yes--perfectly."

"Pardieu, you do not. I will tell you. You are sending your father to
the scaffold."

She turned livid, her step faltered, and she leant against the frame of
the doorway for support. Then she stared at me, wide-eyed in horror.

"That is not true," she pleaded, yet without conviction. "He is not
in danger of his life. They can prove nothing against him. Monsieur de
Saint-Eustache could find no evidence here--nothing."

"Yet there is Monsieur de Saint-Eustache's word; there is the fact--the
significant fact--that your father did not take up arms for the King,
to afford the Chevalier's accusation some measure of corroboration. At
Toulouse in these times they are not particular. Remember how it had
fared with me but for the King's timely arrival."

That smote home. The last shred of her strength fell from her. A great
sob shook her, then covering her face with her hands "Mother in heaven,
have pity on me!" she cried. "Oh, it cannot be, it cannot be!"

Her distress touched me sorely. I would have consoled her, I would have
bidden her have no fear, assuring her that I would s