dy, you are
having your revenge of me."

"_Merci, encore._ Shall I go away and leave you?"

"No, not that." A cold sweat broke out upon me in a sudden childish
horror of the solitude and the darkness and the fetters. And then I
added: "But 'twould be angel kindness if you would leave off torturing
me. I am but a man, dear lady, and a sick man at that."

All in a flash her mood changed and she bent to lay a cool palm on my
throbbing temples.

"Poor Monsieur John!" she said softly; "I meant not to make you suffer
more, but rather less." Then she found water and a napkin to wring out
and bind upon my aching head.

At the touch and the word of womanly sympathy I forgot all, and the
love-madness came again to blot out the very present memory of how she
had brought me to this.

"Ah, that is better--better," I sighed, when the pounding hammers in my
temples gave me some surcease of the agony.

"Then you forgive me?" she asked, whether jestingly or in earnest I
could not tell.

"There is none so much to forgive," I replied. "One hopeless day last
summer I put my life in pledge to you; and you--in common justice you
have the right to do what you will with it."

"Ah; now you talk more like my old-time Monsieur John with the healing
sword-thrust. But that day you speak of was not more hopeless for you
than for me."

"I know it," said I, thinking only of how the loveless marriage must
grind upon her. "But it must needs be hopeless for both till death steps
in to break the bond."

Again she laughed, that same bitter little laugh.

"Indeed, it was a great wrong you did that night, sir. I could wish, as
heartily as you, that it might be undone. But this is idle talk. Let me
see if this key will fit your manacles. I have been all day finding out
who had it, and I am not sure it will be the right one, after all."

But it did prove to be the right one; and when the irons were off I felt
more like a man and less like a baited bear.

"That is better," said I, drawing breath of unfeigned relief. "I bear my
Lord Charles no malice, but 'twas a needless precaution, this ironing of
a man who was never minded to run away."

"But you are going to run away," she said, decisively; "and that as
soon as ever you are able to hold a horse between your knees. Shall I
bring you another dish of tea? Nay, never look so horrified; I shall not
poison you this time."

"Stay," I cried. "You mean that you are going to help me escape? 'Tis a