He realized now, at last, that not because the Queen had ordered
him to procure Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye's enlargement had he
submitted to assume a filthy travesty, to set his neck in jeopardy,
to play the lackey and the spy. It was because something in
Valerie's eyes, something in her pure, lily face had moved him to
it; and simultaneously had come the thought of the relation in which
she stood to that man at La Rochette whose life he now sought to
save for her, and it had stabbed him with a bitterness no misfortune,
no failure yet had brought him.

He trudged on, knowing himself for what he was a fool who, after
close upon forty years of a strenuous life in which no petticoat had
played a part, was come under the spell of a pair of innocent eyes
belonging to a child almost young enough to have been his daughter.

He despised himself a little for his weakness; he despised himself
for his apostasy from the faith that had governed his life - the
faith to keep himself immune from the folly to which womanhood had
driven so many a stout man.

And yet, mock himself, despise himself as he would, a great tenderness, a great desire grew
strong in his soul that night as he trudged on toward distant Voiron. Mile after mile her image
kept him company, and once, when he had left Voreppe behind him, the greater portion of his
journey done, some devil whispered in his ear that he was weary; that he would be over-weary
on the morrow for any ride to La Rochette. He had done all that mortal man could do; let him
rest to-morrow whilst Marius and Fortunio accomplished by Florimond what the fever had
begun.

A cold perspiration broke on him as he wrestled with that grim
temptation. Valerie was his; she belonged to him by the right of