"But I did not doubt you. I believed in you when he said it, as I
believe in you now when you stand there like that. I know what you have
done for me--"

"I pleaded with Monsieur Fournel, knowing how you loved the Seigneury--
pleaded and offered to pay three times the price--"

"Yourself would have been a hundred million times the price. Ah, I know
you, Madelinette--I know you now! I have been selfish, but I see all
now. Now when all is over--" he seemed listening to noises with out--
"I see what you have done for me. I know how you have sacrificed all for
me--all but honour--all but honour," he added, a wild fire in his eyes,
a trembling seizing him. "Your honour is yours forever. I say so.
I say so, and I have proved it. Kiss me, Madelinette--kiss me once," he
added, in a quick whisper.

"My poor, poor Louis!" she said, laid a soothing hand upon his arm, and
leaned towards him. He snatched her to his breast, and kissed her twice
in a very agony of joy, then let her go. He listened for an instant to
the growing noise without, then said in a hoarse voice:

"Now, I will tell you, Madelinette. They are coming for me--don't you
hear them? They are coming to take me; but they shall not have me. They
shall not have me--" he glanced to a little door that led into a bath-
room at his right.

"Louis-Louis!" she said in a sudden fright, for though his words seemed
mad, a strange quiet sanity was in all he did. "What have you done? Who
are coming?" she asked in agony, and caught him by the arm.