had scarcely spoken since Bezers' entrance. As she spoke now,
she shook back the hood from her face and disclosed the chestnut
hair clinging about her temples--deep blots of colour on the
abnormal whiteness of her skin, "That is true, M. de Bezers," she
said. "You have the legions. You have the power. But you will
not use it, I think, against an old friend. You will not do us
this hurt when I--But listen."

He would not. In the very middle of her appeal he cut her short
--brute that he was! "No Madame!" he burst out violently,
disregarding the beautiful face, the supplicating glance, that
might have moved a stone, "that is just what I will not do. I
will not listen! We know one another. Is not that enough?"

She looked at him fixedly. He returned her gaze, not smiling
now, but eyeing her with a curious watchfulness.

And after a long pause she turned from him. "Very well," she
said softly, and drew a deep, quivering breath, the sound of
which reached us. "Then let us go." And without--strangest
thing of all--bestowing a word or look on her sister, who was
weeping bitterly in a chair, she turned to the door and led the
way out, a shrug of her shoulders the last thing I marked.

The poor lady heard her departing step however,
and sprang up. It dawned upon her that she was being deserted.
"Diane! Diane!" she cried distractedly--and I had to put my
hand on Croisette to keep him quiet, there was such fear and pain
in her tone--"I will go! I will not be left behind in this
dreadful place! Do you hear? Come back to me, Diane!"