Tell me!"

"I will not tell you, Etienne, for it would hurt you far more
than it would me. Well, well, I will tell you lest you should
fear it was something worse. The president has ordered that my
ear be cut off, that I may be marked for ever as having loved a
Frenchman."

Her ear! The dear little ear which I had kissed so often. I put
my hand to each little velvet shell to make certain that this
sacrilege had not yet been committed.

Only over my dead body should they reach them. I swore it to her
between my clenched teeth.

"You must not care, Etienne. And yet I love that you should care
all the same."

"They shall not hurt you--the fiends!"

"I have hopes, Etienne. Lorenzo is there. He was silent while I
was judged, but he may have pleaded for me after I was gone."

"He did. I heard him."

"Then he may have softened their hearts."

I knew that it was not so, but how could I bring myself to tell
her? I might as well have done so, for with the quick instinct
of woman my silence was speech to her.