surprise, refusing my outstretched hand.

"Neither guard nor jailer any more, Gabord," said I seriously.
"We've had enough of that, my friend."

The soldier and the jailer had been working in him, and his
fingers trifled with the trigger. In all things he was the foeman
first. But now something else was working in him. I saw this, and
added pointedly, "No more cage, Gabord, not even for reward of
twenty thousand livres and at command of Holy Church."

He smiled grimly, too grimly, I thought, and turned inquiringly
to Babette. In a few words she told him all, tears dropping from
her eyes.

"If you take him, you betray me," she said; "and what would Jean
say, if he knew?"

"Gabord," said I, "I come not as a spy; I come to seek my wife,
and she counts you as her friend. Do harm to me, and you do harm to
her. Serve me, and you serve her. Gabord, you said to her once that
I was an honourable man."

He put up his pistol. "Aho, you've put your head in the trap.
Stir, and click goes the spring."

"I must have my wife," I continued. "Shall the nest you helped
to make go empty?"

I worked upon him to such purpose that, all bristling with war