e seemed to quicken the thought of General
Saterges. He drew himself up still more erect in his chair. His eyes
were on Elizabeth with the will to scan her heart of hearts. He spoke,
--
"What is this man to you?"
She paused a moment. And she, too, had a thought. She could play a
game for life. She looked at the old man, hesitated, answered,--
"He is everything."
"Just let me understand you," and he looked upon her as if _he_
might touch her secret. "Do you love Cordier?"
"I love him," she answered, with exceeding dignity, evident
truthfulness.
"Do I understand you?" he said again,--"what are you to him?"
"Everything," she again replied, with perfect confidence and faith.
Was she not liberty and the joy of life to him? If liberty and joy
were ever to be his portion, they must come through her. So she
believed, and thus answered.
"Does he love you?"
"Yes."
"You speak with great assurance. I know the man better, I'm afraid."
Then his voice and manner changed. "He is sentenced. Justice passed
that sentence;--to reverse it were the work of imbecility. Speak no
more. It is not in man to grant what you ask."
He was trying her in her last stronghold,--proving her in her last
depth.
"Is this your answer?" she asked. And indeed, after what had just
passed between them, it did seem incredible.
The old man bowed. He seemed now impassible. He was stern, and hard
as rock. He believed that he had wellnigh been deceived,--and
deception practised successfully on him would have disgraced him in
his own eyes forever. He believed, what he would not trust his lips
to utter, that this applicant was Madeline Desperiers's agent. When
he bowed and did not answer, a fear came down upon Elizabeth that
almost took away her power of speech; that it did not quite deprive
her of that power rendered it so much the more terrible for the
anguish of its emphasis.
"Do women kneel to you when they ask the pardon of those they love?"
said she, with a paling face. "What shall I do to move you? What
have I not done? I trusted, that, having come so far, on such an
errand, it must be that God was my leader. Am I mistaken? Or dare
you withstand God? Tell me,--you are an old man,--have you no pity?
Have you never had a sorrow? Can you not see that I never could have
come here to plead for a bad man's life? Must I go back to see him
die?"
"Madam, you are standing where I cannot come to argue with you. Pity
and justice have the
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