"Montero victorious, completely victorious!" Mrs. Gould breathed out in
a tone of unbelief.

"A canard, probably. That sort of bird is hatched in great numbers in
such times as these. And even if it were true? Well, let us put things
at their worst, let us say it is true."

"Then everything is lost," said Mrs. Gould, with the calmness of
despair.

Suddenly she seemed to divine, she seemed to see Decoud's tremendous
excitement under its cloak of studied carelessness. It was, indeed,
becoming visible in his audacious and watchful stare, in the curve,
half-reckless, half-contemptuous, of his lips. And a French phrase came
upon them as if, for this Costaguanero of the Boulevard, that had been
the only forcible language--

"_Non, Madame. Rien n'est perdu_."

It electrified Mrs. Gould out of her benumbed attitude, and she said,
vivaciously--

"What would you think of doing?"

But already there was something of mockery in Decoud's suppressed
excitement.

"What would you expect a true Costaguanero to do? Another revolution, of
course. On my word of honour, Mrs. Gould, I believe I am a true _hijo del
pays_, a true son of the country, whatever Father Corbelan may say. And
I'm not so much of an unbeliever as not to have faith in my own ideas,
in my own remedies, in my own desires."

"Yes," said Mrs. Gould, doubtfully.

"You don't seem convinced," Decoud went on again in French. "Say, then,
in my passions."

Mrs. Gould received this addition unflinchingly. To understand it
thoroughly she did not require to hear his muttered assurance--

"There is nothing I would not do for the sake of Antonia. There is
nothing I am not prepared to undertake. There is no risk I am not ready
to run."

Decoud seemed to find a fresh audacity in this voicing of his thoughts.
"You would not believe me if I were to say that it is the love of the
country which--"

She made a sort of discouraged protest with her arm, as if to express
that she had given up expecting that motive from any one.

"A Sulaco revolution," Decoud pursued in a forcible undertone. "The
Great Cause may be served here, on the very spot of its inception, in
the place of its birth, Mrs. Gould."

Frowning, and biting her lower lip thoughtfully, she made a step away
from the door.

"You are not going to speak to your husband?" Decoud arrested her
anxiously.

"But you will need his help?"

"No doubt," Decoud admitted without hesitation. "Everything turns upon
th