of life. He was a captive, a prisoner, he had a wound got in fair
fighting, and I will do him the credit to say he was an honest man;
he was no spy."

She looked up at him with a slight flush, almost of gratitude.
"I know that well," she returned. "I knew there was other cause
than spying at the base of all ill treatment of him. I know that
you, you alone, kept him prisoner here five long years."

"Not I; the Grande Marquise--for weighty reasons. You should not
fret at those five years, since it gave you what you have cherished
so much, a husband--after a fashion. But yet we will do him
justice: he is an honourable fighter, he has parts and graces of a
rude order. But he will never go far in life; he has no instincts
and habits common with you; it has been, so far, a compromise,
founded upon the old-fashioned romance of ill-used captive and
soft-hearted maid; the compassion, too, of the superior for the
low, the free for the caged."

"Compassion such as your Excellency feels for me, no doubt," she
said, with a slow pride.

"You are caged, but you may be free," he rejoined meaningly.

"Yes, in the same market open to him, and at the same price of
honour," she replied, with dignity.

"Will you not sit down?" he now said, motioning her to a chair
politely, and taking one himself, thus pausing before he answered
her.