me."

"Did he also tell you where he found me?"

"No, Princess."

"Did he tell you that, being fetched hither, I was offered by my
brother in marriage to a young Count Odo of the Rocca Serra, and that
the poor boy slew himself with his own gun?"

I stuffed my hands deep in my pockets, and said I, standing over
her--

"All this has been told me, Princess, though not the precise reason
for it: and since you desire me to be frank I will tell you that I
have given some thought to that dead lad--that rival of mine (if you
will permit the word) whom I never knew. The mystery of his death is
a mystery to me still; but in all my blind guesses this somehow
remained clear to me, that he had loved you, Princess; and this
(again I ask your leave to say it), because I could understand it so
well, forbade me to think unkindly of him."

"He loved his honour better, sir." Her face had flushed darkly.

"I am sorry, then, if I must suffer by comparison."

"No, no," she protested. "Oh, why will you twist my words and force
me to seem ungrateful? He died rather than have me to wife: you took
me on the terms that within a few minutes you must die. For both of
you the remedy was at hand, only _you_ chose to save me before taking
it. On my knees, sir, I could thank you for that. The crueller were
they that, when you stood up claiming your right to die, they broke
the bargain and cheated you."

"Princess," I said, after musing a moment, "if my surviving seemed to
you so pitiable, there was another way." I pointed to her musket.

"Yes, cavalier, and I will confess to you that when, having fired
wide, they turned to go and the cheat was evident, twice before you
pulled the bandage away I had lifted my gun. But I could not fire
it, cavalier. To make me your executioner! Me, your wife--and while
you thought so vilely of me!"

"Faith," said I grimly, "it was asking too much, even for a Genoese!
Yet again I think you overrate their little trick, since, after
all"--I touched my own gunstock--"there remains a third way--the way
chosen by young Odo of Rocca Serra."

She put out a hand. "Sir, that way you need not take--if you will be
patient and hear me!"

"Lady," said I, "you may hastily despise me; but I am neither going
to take that way, nor to be patient, nor to hear you. But I am, as
you invited me, going to be very frank and confess to you, risking
your contempt, that I am extremely thankful the Genoese did not shoot