h and beauty to age and infirmity was in itself
suspicious. The Catholic King has the guile of Satan, I remembered. I
wondered, and hoped my suspicions might be unfounded. Yet prudence made
me test them, that the danger, if it existed, should manifest itself and
be destroyed. So I came to tell you all my story, so that if you did the
thing I feared, you might come to the knowledge of precisely what it was
you did. I have learnt whilst here that what I suspected is--alas! quite
true. You were a lure, a decoy sent to work my ruin, to draw me into
a trap where daggers waited for me. Why did you do this? What was the
bribe that could corrupt you, lovely lady?"

Sobs shook her. Her will gave way before his melancholy sternness.

"I do not know by what wizardry you have discovered it!" she cried.
"It was true; but it is true no longer. I knew not what I did. By that
window, across the meadows, you can reach the river in safety." She
rose, controlling her emotion that she might instruct him. "They wait
for you in the enclosed garden."

He smiled wistfully.

"They waited, madame. They wait no longer, unless it be for death. That
eagle's cry, thrice repeated, was the signal from my faithful Gil, not
only that the trap was discovered, but that those who baited it were
taken. Suspecting what I did, I took my measures ere I came. Antonio
Perez, as I have told you, is not an easy man to murder. Unlike Philip,
I do not make war on women, and I have no reckoning to present to you.
But I am curious, madame, to know what led you to this baseness."

"I--I thought you evil, and--and they bribed me. I was offered ten
thousand ducats for your head. We are very poor, we Chantenacs, and so
I fell. But, sir--sir"--she was on her knees to him now, and she had
caught his hand in hers--"poor as I am, all that I have is yours to do
with as you will, to help to avenge yourself upon that Spanish monster.
Take what you will. Take all I have."

His smile grew gentler. Gently he raised her.

"Madame," he said, "I am myself a sinner, as I have shown you, a man
unequal to resisting temptation when it took me in its trammels. Of all
that you offer, I will take only the right to this kiss."

And bending, he bore her hand to his lips.

Then he went out to join Gil and his men, who waited in the courtyard,
guarding three prisoners they had taken.

Perez considered them by the light of the lantern that Gil held aloft
for him.

"One of you," he an