u cast epithets about you and bestow titles with a magnificent
unconsciousness of how well they might fit you."

"Ah? For example?"

"In calling this man a craven, you take no thought for the cowardice
that actuates you into hiding while he dies for you?"

"Cowardice?" he ejaculated. Then a flush spread on his face. "Ma
foi, Mademoiselle," said he, in a quivering voice, "your words betray
thoughts that would be scarcely becoming in the Vicomtesse d'Ombreval."

"That, Monsieur, is a point that need give you little thought. I am not
likely to become the Vicomtesse."

He bestowed her a look of mingling wonder and anger. Had he, indeed,
heard her aright? Did her words imply that she disdained the honour?

"Surely," he gasped, voicing those doubts of his, "you do not mean that
you would violate your betrothal contract? You do not--"

"I mean, Monsieur," she cut in, "that I will give myself to no man I do
not love."

"Your immodesty," said he, "falls in nothing short of the extraordinary
frame of mind that you appear to be developing in connection with other
matters. We shall have you beating a drum and screeching the Ca ira in
the streets of Paris presently, like Mademoiselle de Mericourt."

She rose from the table, her face very white, her hand pressing upon her
corsage. A moment she looked at him. Then:

"Do not let us talk of ourselves," she exclaimed at last. "There is
a man in the Conciergerie who dies at noon unless you are forthcoming
before then to save him. He himself will not betray you because he--No
matter why, he will not. Tell me, Monsieur, how do you, who account
yourself a man of honour above everything, intend to deal with this
situation?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Once he is dead and done with--provided that he does not first betray
me--I trust that, no longer having this subject to harp upon, you will
consent to avail yourself of our passport, and accompany me out of
France."

"Honour does not for instance, suggest to you that you should repair
to the Conciergerie and take the place that belongs to you, and which
another is filling?"

A sudden light of comprehension swept now into his face.

"At last I understand what has been in your mind since yesterday, what
has made you so odd in your words and manner. You have thought that it
was perhaps my duty as a man of honour to go and effect the rescue of
this fellow. But, my dear child, bethink you of what he is, and of
what I am. Were he