warn you, that, before sunrise, you will be safer travelling than
sleeping,--safer next week in Vienna than in Paris."

"Thank you! And the intelligence is the price of the diamond? If I had
not chanced to pick it up, my throat," and she clasped it with her
fingers, "had been no slenderer than the others?"

"Delphine, will you remember, should you have occasion to do so in
Vienna, that it is just possible for an Englishman to have affections,
and sentiments, and, in fact, sensations? that, with him, friendship can
be inviolate, and to betray it an impossibility? And even were it
not, I, Mademoiselle, have not the pleasure to be classed by you as a
friend."

"You err. I esteem Monsieur highly."

I was impressed by her coolness.

"Let me see if you comprehend the matter," I demanded.

"Perfectly. The arrest will be used to-night, the guillotine to-morrow."

"You will take immediate measures for flight?"

"No,--I do not see that life has value. I shall be the debtor of him who
takes it."

"A large debt. Delphine, I exact a promise of you. I do not care to have
endangered myself for nothing. It is not worth while to make your mother
unhappy. Life is not yours to throw away. I appeal to your magnanimity."