face.

"It is you, you villain!" he cried. "You French coxcomb. You
shall pay me for the wrong which you have done me."

But the next instant he saw the pallor of my face and the blood
which was still pouring from my head.

"What is this?" he asked. "How come you to have lost your ear?"

I shook off my weakness, and pressing my handkerchief to my wound
I rose from my couch, the debonair colonel of Hussars.

"My injury, sir, is nothing. With your permission we will not
allude to a matter so trifling and so personal."

But Lucia had burst through from her cell and was pouring out the
whole story while she clasped Lorenzo's arm.

"This noble gentleman--he has taken my place, Lorenzo! He has
borne it for me. He has suffered that I might be saved."

I could sympathise with the struggle which I could see in the
Italian's face. At last he held out his hand to me.

"Colonel Gerard," he said, "you are worthy of a great love. I
forgive you, for if you have wronged me you have made a noble
atonement. But I wonder to see you alive. I left the tribunal
before you were judged, but I understood that no mercy would be
shown to any Frenchman since the destruction of the ornaments of