!" she said steadily. "You must tell
them now who you are. Tell them, Jean, and they will let you go."

"Tell them now!" Jean cried--and shook his head, and drew his shoulders
back. "Tell them--_now_! Did I tell them that night, Marie-Louise?
Look!"--he thrust out his handcuffed wrists before him. "Is this not
proof, Marie-Louise, that I will never tell them, that I will never go
back--alone? If the world is ever to hear of Jean Laparde again, it
will be because he has won back the only thing he has to live
for--you--you, Marie-Louise, my little Marie-Louise. I told them my
name was Jacques Legault--and Jacques Legault I will always be until
you have made Jean Laparde live again, until--until--you are his
wife--as in God's sight you have been, Marie-Louise, since we were
little children, as in God's sight you were when I swore that oath to
Gaston as he died, as in God's sight you have been though I was a
traitor to that oath. Look, Marie-Louise! Look at these things again,
these irons on my wrists, are they not proof that there is nothing now,
that I will have nothing, that I will know nothing but your love? Ah,
Marie-Louise, once you said that I belonged to France, and you bade me
go alone and work; and I forgot France, and love, and there was only
Jean Laparde, and I forgot the God that gave the gift--but now,
Marie-Louise, look up into my face and answer, shall I work this time
for France and you and love, or shall I never work again?
Marie-Louise, see"--his voice broke in its passionate pleading--"they
are coming! Marie-Louise, do you not know now that there is only
you--only you, Marie-Louise--for always?"

She did not answer. They were taking Jean, and taking her somewhere
now. She walked almost blindly. Jean had not gone back that night,
and--and those things on his wrists were proof that--that he would
never go back. Proof that, whatever might happen now, whatever he was
going now to face, whatever they might do with him, the choice he had
made that night was made for all his life; that she, even if she would,
could not alter it now--proof that his love was so great and wonderful
and strong and big that nothing could bend or break or shatter
it--proof it was a love so pure that it had risen in sacrifice so high
as to make a glory of the years when he had forgotten it! Yes; she
knew now! Her heart, and her soul, and the _bon Dieu_ told her so!
What was it he had said that night on the ship--that