may have refused to-day," returned the Vicomte
frenziedly, "he may think better of it to-morrow-perhaps even tonight.
Ciel! Think of the risk we run; already it may be too late. Oh, why," he
demanded reproachfully, "why didn't you listen to me when, days ago, I
counselled flight?"

"Because it neither was, nor is, my intention to fly."

"What?" he cried, and, his jaw fallen and his eyes wide, he regarded
her. Then suddenly he caught her by the arm and shook her roughly. "Are
you mad?" he cried, in a frenzy of anger and fear. "Am I to die like
a dog that a scum of a Republican may save his miserable neck? Is this
canaille of a revolutionist to betray me to his rabble Tribunal?"

"Already have I told you that you need fear no betrayal."

"Need I not?" he sneered. "Ma foi! but I know these ruffians. There is
not an ounce of honour in the whole National Convention."

"Fool!" she blazed, rising and confronting him with an anger before
which he recoiled, appalled. "Do you dare to stand there and prate of
honour--you? Do you forget why he stood his trial? Do you forget why
he is dying, and can you not see the vile thing that you are doing in
arguing flight, that you talk of honour thus, and deny his claim to it?
Mon Dieu! Your effrontery stifles me! La Boulaye was right when he said
that with us honour is but a word--just so much wind, and nothing more."

He stared at her in uncomprehending wonder. He drew away another step.
He accounted her mad, and, that he might humour her, he put by his
own fears for the moment--a wonderful unselfishness this in the most
nobly-born Vicomte d'Ombreval.

"My poor Suzanne," he murmured. "Our trouble has demoralised your
understanding. You take a false view of things. You do not apprehend the
situation."

"In God's name, be silent!" she gasped.

"But the time is not one for silence," he returned.

"So I had thought," quoth she. "Yet since you can be silent and furtive
in other matters, I beg that you will be silent in this also. You talk
in vain, Monsieur, in any case. For I am not minded to leave Choisy. If
you urge me further I shall burn our passport."

And with that she left him, to seek the solitude of her own room. In a
passion of tears she flung herself upon the little bed, and there she
lay, a prey to such an anguish as had never touched her life before.

And now, in that hour of her grief, it came to her--as the sun pierces
the mist--that she loved La Boulaye; that she h