nk the game not worth the
candle--you doubt me and what I can do for you; my sincerity, my power
you doubt."

"Indeed, yes, I doubt both," she answered gravely, "for you would have
me believe that I have power to lead you. With how small a mind you
credit me! You think, too, that you sway this kingdom; but I know that
you stand upon a cliff's edge, and that the earth is fraying 'neath your
tread. You dare to think that you have power to drag down with you the
man who honours me with--"

"With his love, you'd say. Yet he will leave you fretting out your soul
until the sharp-edged truth cuts your heart in twain. Have you no pride?
I care not what you say of me--say your worst, and I will not resent it,
for I will still prove that your way lies with me."

She gave a bitter sigh, and touched her forehead with trembling fingers.
"If words could prove it, I had been convinced but now, for they are
well devised, and they have music too; but such a music, my lord, as
would drown the truth in the soul of a woman. Your words allure, but you
have learned the art of words. You yourself--oh, my lord, you who have
tasted all the pleasures of this world, could you then have the heart to
steal from one who has so little that little which gives her happiness?"

"You know not what can make you happy--I can teach you that. By God's
Son! but you have wit and intellect and are a match for a prince, not
for a cast off Camisard. I shall ere long be Lord--Lieutenant of these
Isles-of England and Ireland. Come to my nest. We will fly far--ah, your
eye brightens, your heart leaps to mine--I feel it now, I--"

"Oh, have done, have done," she passionately broke in; "I would rather
die, be torn upon the rack, burnt at the stake, than put my hand in
yours! And you do not wish it--you speak but to destroy, not to cherish.
While you speak to me I see all those"--she made a gesture as though to
put something from her "all those to whom you have spoken as you have
done to me. I hear the myriad falsehoods you have told--one whelming
confusion. I feel the blindness which has crept upon them--those poor
women--as you have sown the air with the dust of the passion which you
call love. Oh, you never knew what love meant, my lord! I doubt if, when
you lay in your mother's arms, you turned to her with love. You never
did one kindly act for love, no generous thought was ever born in you by
love. Sir, I know it as though it were written in a book; your life