e added the word I craved of him.

"Are you content at last?" he asked, returning the paper to me.

I glanced at it. The warrant now stipulated that Madame la Vicomtesse de
Lavedan should bear her husband company in his exile.

"Sire, you are too good!" I murmured.

"Tell the officer to whom you entrust the execution of this warrant
that he will find the lady in the guardroom below, where she is being
detained, pending my pleasure. Did she but know that it was your
pleasure she has been waiting upon, I should tremble for your future
when the five years expire."

CHAPTER XXII. WE UNSADDLE

Mademoiselle held the royal warrant of her father's banishment in her
hand. She was pale, and her greeting of me had been timid. I stood
before her, and by the door stood Rodenard, whom I had bidden attend me.

As I had approached Lavedan that day, I had been taken with a great, an
overwhelming shame at the bargain I had driven. I had pondered, and it
had come to me that she had been right to suggest that in matters of
love what is not freely given it is not worth while to take. And out of
my shame and that conclusion had sprung a new resolve. So that nothing
might weaken it, and lest, after all, the sight of Roxalanne should
bring me so to desire her that I might be tempted to override my
purpose, I had deemed it well to have the restraint of a witness at our
last interview. To this end had I bidden Ganymede follow me into the
very salon.

She read the document to the very end, then her glance was raised
timidly again to mine, and from me it shifted to Ganymede, stiff at his
post by the door.

"This was the best that you could do, monsieur?" she asked at last.

"The very best, mademoiselle," I answered calmly. "I do not wish to
magnify my service, but it was that or the scaffold. Madame your mother
had, unfortunately, seen the King before me, and she had prejudiced your
father's case by admitting him to be a traitor. There was a moment
when in view of that I was almost led to despair. I am glad, however,
mademoiselle, that I was so fortunate as to persuade the King to just so
much clemency."

"And for five years, then, I shall not see my parents." She sighed, and
her distress was very touching.

"That need not be. Though they may not come to France, it still remains
possible for you to visit them in Spain."

"True," she mused; "that will be something--will it not?"

"Assuredly something; under the circumstance