, no; they would have done no murder."

"Perhaps not, but I could not be sure just then. Most men situated as
your father was would have despatched me. Ah, mademoiselle, have you not
proofs enough? Do you not believe me now?"

"Yes, monsieur," she answered simply, "I believe you."

"Will you not believe, then, in the sincerity of my love?"

She made no rely. Her face was averted, but from her silence I took
heart. I drew close to her. I set my hand upon the tall back of her
chair, and, leaning towards her, I spoke with passionate heat as must
have melted, I thought, any woman who had not a loathing for me.

"Mademoiselle; I am a poor man now," I ended. "I am no longer that
magnificent gentleman whose wealth and splendour were a byword. Yet am I
no needy adventurer. I have a little property at Beaugency--a very spot
for happiness, mademoiselle. Paris shall know me no more. At Beaugency
I shall live at peace, in seclusion, and, so that you come with me, in
such joy as in all my life I have done nothing to deserve. I have no
longer an army of retainers. A couple of men and a maid or two shall
constitute our household. Yet I shall account my wealth well lost if for
love's sake you'll share with me the peace of my obscurity. I am poor,
mademoiselle yet no poorer even now than that Gascon gentleman, Rene de
Lesperon, for whom you held me, and on whom you bestowed the priceless
treasure of your heart."

"Oh, might it have pleased God that you had remained that poor Gascon
gentleman!" she cried.

"In what am I different, Roxalanne?"

"In that he had laid no wager," she answered, rising suddenly.

My hopes were withering. She was not angry. She was pale, and her gentle
face was troubled--dear God! how sorely troubled! To me it almost seemed
that I had lost.

She flashed me a glance of her blue eyes, and I thought that tears
impended.

"Roxalanne!" I supplicated.

But she recovered the control that for a moment she had appeared upon
the verge of losing. She put forth her hand.

"Adieu, monsieur!" said she.

I glanced from her hand to her face. Her attitude began to anger me, for
I saw that she was not only resisting me, but resisting herself. In her
heart the insidious canker of doubt persisted. She knew--or should have
known--that it no longer should have any place there, yet obstinately
she refrained from plucking it out. There was that wager. But for that
same obstinacy she must have realized the reason of my