s, have realised how small a
thing is honour, loyalty, or friendship when weighed in the balance of a
loved one's need.

To save Jeanne you sold me to Heron and his crowd. We are men, Armand,
and the word forgiveness has only been spoken once these past two
thousand years, and then it was spoken by Divine lips. But Marguerite
loves you, and mayhap soon you will be all that is left her to love
on this earth. Because of this she must never know.... As for you,
Armand--well, God help you! But meseems that the hell which you are
enduring now is ten thousand times worse than mine. I have heard your
furtive footsteps in the corridor outside the grated window of this
cell, and would not then have exchanged my hell for yours. Therefore,
Armand, and because Marguerite loves you, I would wish to turn to you in
the hour that I need help. I am in a tight corner, but the hour may
come when a comrade's hand might mean life to me. I have thought of you,
Armand partly because having taken more than my life, your own belongs
to me, and partly because the plan which I have in my mind will carry
with it grave risks for the man who stands by me.

I swore once that never would I risk a comrade's life to save mine own;
but matters are so different now... we are both in hell, Armand, and I
in striving to get out of mine will be showing you a way out of yours.

Will you retake possession of your lodgings in the Rue de la Croix
Blanche? I should always know then where to find you on an emergency.
But if at any time you receive another letter from me, be its contents
what they may, act in accordance with the letter, and send a copy of
it at once to Ffoulkes or to Marguerite. Keep in close touch with them
both. Tell her I so far forgave your disobedience (there was nothing
more) that I may yet trust my life and mine honour in your hands.

I shall have no means of ascertaining definitely whether you will do all
that I ask; but somehow, Armand, I know that you will.

For the third time Armand read the letter through.

"But, Armand," he repeated, murmuring the words softly tinder his
breath, "I know that you will."

Prompted by some indefinable instinct, moved by a force that compelled,
he allowed himself to glide from the chair on to the floor, on to his
knees.

All the pent-up bitterness, the humiliation, the shame of the past few
days, surged up from his heart to his lips in one great cry of pain.

"My God!" he whispered, "give me t