winning life and happiness, and already I had sacrificed so much.
Her cry rang still in my ears, "It cannot be, it cannot be!"

I trampled my nascent tenderness underfoot, and in its room I set a
harshness that I did not feel - a harshness of defiance and menace.

"It can be, it will be, and, as God lives, it shall be, if you
persist in your unreasonable attitude."

"Monsieur, have mercy!"

"Yes, when you shall be pleased to show me the way to it by having
mercy upon me. If I have sinned, I have atoned. But that is a
closed question now; to reopen it were futile. Take heed of this,
Roxalanne: there is one thing - one only in all France can save
your father."

"That is, monsieur?" she inquired breathlessly.

"My word against that of Saint-Eustache. My indication to His
Majesty that your father's treason is not to be accepted on the
accusation of Saint-Eustache. My information to the King of what
I know touching this gentleman."

"You will go, monsieur?" she implored me. "Oh, you will save him!
Mon Dieu, to think of the time that we have wasted here, you and I,
whilst he is being carried to the scaffold! Oh, I did not dream it
was so perilous with him! I was desolated by his arrest; I thought
of some months' imprisonment, perhaps. But that he should die - !
Monsieur de Bardelys, you will save him! Say that you will do this