ed, which I fitted on her
finger; and so I held her hand, letting drop on it by degrees the
weight of the heavy seal.

From the first she had offered no resistance, made no protest.
I pressed the seal into the palm of her hand, not telling her that it
was her own father's great seal of Corsica. But I folded her fingers
back on it, reverently touched the one encircled by the ring, and
said I--

"It is the best I can give;" and a little later, "It is all I brought
in my pockets but this handkerchief. Take that, too; lead me out;
and bandage my eyes, my wife."

She took my arm obediently and we stepped out by the doorway,
bridegroom and bride, in face of the soldiery. A sergeant saluted
and came forward for the Commandant's orders.

"A moment, sir," said I, and, laying two fingers on the Commandant's
arm, I nodded towards the bole of a stout pine-tree across the
clearing. "Will that distance suit you?"

He nodded in reply and as I swung on my heel touched my arm in his
turn.

"You will do me the honour, sir, to shake hands?"

"Most willingly, sir." I shook hands with him, casting, as I did so,
a glance over my shoulder at the Prince and Father Domenico, who hung
back in the doorway--two men afraid. "Come," said I to the Princess,
and, as she seemed to hesitate, "Come, my wife," I commanded, and
walked to the pine-tree, she following. I held out the handkerchief.
She took it, still obediently, and as she took it I clasped her hand
and lifted it to my lips.

"Nay," said I, challenging, "what was it you told your brother?
A moment? A pang? What are they to weigh against a lifetime of
dishonour?"

I saw her blench: yet even while she bandaged me at my bidding, I did
not arrive at understanding the folly--the cruel folly of that
speech. Nay, even when, having bandaged me, she stepped away and
left me, I considered not nor surmised what second meaning might be
read in it.

Shall I confess the truth? I was too consciously playing a part and
making a handsome exit. After all, had I not some little excuse?
. . . Here was I, young, lusty, healthful, with a man's career
before me, and across it, trenched at my feet, the grave. A saying
of Billy Priske's comes into my mind--a word spoken, years after,
upon a poor fisherman of Constantine parish whose widow, as by will
directed, spent half his savings on a tombstone of carved granite.
"A man," said Billy, "must cut a dash once in his lifetime, though
the ch