She laughed a little nervous laugh, and - maybe to ease the tension
that my sudden silence had begotten - "You see," she said, "how your
imagination deserts you when you seek to draw upon it for proof of
what you protest. You were about to tell me of - of the interests
that hold you at Lavedan, and when you come to ponder them, you find
that you can think of nothing. Is it - is it not so?" She put the
question very timidly, as if half afraid of the answer she might
provoke.
"No; it is not so," I said.
I paused a moment, and in that moment I wrestled with myself.
Confession and avowal - confession of what I had undertaken, and
avowal of the love that had so unexpectedly come to me - trembled
upon my lips, to be driven shuddering away in fear.
Have I not said that this Bardelys was become a coward? Then my
cowardice suggested a course to me - flight. I would leave Lavedan.
I would return to Paris and to Chatellerault, owning defeat and
paying my wager. It was the only course open to me. My honour, so
tardily aroused, demanded no less. Yet, not so much because of that
as because it was suddenly revealed to me as the easier course, did
I determine to pursue it. What thereafter might become of me I did
not know, nor in that hour of my heart's agony did it seem to matter
overmuch.
"There is much, mademoiselle, much, indeed, to hold me firmly at
Lavedan," I pursued at last. "But my - my obligations demand of me
that I depart.
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