But I had
a mind to see how far he would drive this game he was engaged upon.
Again there was a spell of silence, and at last, when Mademoiselle
spoke, I was amazed at the calm voice in which she addressed him,
marvelling at the strength and courage of one so frail and childlike
to behold.
"Is your determination, indeed, irrevocable, monsieur? If you have
any pity, will you not at least let me bear my prayers and my tears
to the King?"
"It would avail you nothing. As I have said, the Languedoc rebels
are in my hands." He paused as if to let those words sink well into
her understanding; then, "If I were to set him at liberty,
mademoiselle, if I were to spirit him out of prison in the night,
bribing his jailers to keep silent and binding him by oath to quit
France at once and never to betray me, I should be, myself, guilty
of high treason. Thus alone could the thing be done, and you will
see, mademoiselle, that by doing it I should be endangering my neck."
There was an ineffable undercurrent of meaning in his words - an
intangible suggestion that he might be bribed to do all this to
which he so vaguely alluded.
"I understand, monsieur," she answered, choking - "I understand that
it would be too much to ask of you."
"It would be much, mademoiselle," he returned quickly, and his voice
was now subdued and invested with an odd quiver. "But nothing that
your lips might ask of me and that it might lie in the power of
mortal man to do, would be too much!"
"You mean?" she cried, a catch in her breath.
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