die, since if he dies you will not wed?"

"Do you ask me why, Sire?" said I. "Because they call you Louis the
Just, and because no king was ever more deserving of the title."

He winced; he pursed his lips, and shot a glance at La Fosse, who
was deep in the mysteries of his volume. Then he drew towards him
a sheet of paper, and, taking a quill, he sat toying with it.

"Because they call me the Just, I must let justice take its course,"
he answered presently.

"But," I objected, with a sudden hope, "the course of justice cannot
lead to the headsman in the case of the Vicomte de Lavedan."

"Why not?" And his solemn eyes met mine across the table.

"Because he took no active part in the revolt. If he was a traitor,
he was no more than a traitor at heart, and until a man commits a
crime in deed he is not amenable to the law's rigour. His wife has
made his defection clear; but it were unfair to punish him in the
same measure as you punish those who bore arms against you, Sire."

"Ah!" he pondered. "Well? What more?"

"Is that not enough, Sire?" I cried. My heart beat quickly, and my
pulses throbbed with the suspense of that portentous moment.

He bent his head, dipped his pen and began to write.