"My love, my love," Sylvia murmured. "I have saved you--you who would have died to save me--you who strove so valiantly."
"And failed! Yet did not fail either, since are not you, my sweet, the gain of a loss?"
"Also another reward is yours. Lord Marlborough restores you to the life you covet, the life that I would have you lead, except only for one thing."
"That, following this life, I must part from you; must let you go from my side. You whom I would have ever near to me, you from whom I would never part more, you whom I love with my whole heart and soul."
The suburb of St. Walburgh was in flames, the French soldiers, consisting of twelve battalions who had been stationed there, had come into the Citadel and the Chartreuse. A hundred houses had been set on fire by them, and, ere dawn came, all that part of Liége was as light as day. The magistracy and the chapter against whom no orders, even if they had been issued, could have had any effect since now the gates were neglected by the French, had visited Marlborough in his camp outside, and had signed articles as to the disposition of the city and all in it, while three English battalions under Lord Cutts, and three Dutch, held the North gate and endeavoured to keep order in the streets. It only remained now that the artillery should arrive, the fascines be cut and the trenches opened for the Citadel and Chartreuse to be attacked, unless those within them surrendered.
Inside that room in which Bevill had passed so many weary days, waiting to meet the doom that had been pronounced on him, there were now three prisoners, namely, he who had so long occupied it, the woman he loved so tenderly, and the Comtesse de Valorme. For she, too, had been detained by De Violaine in consequence of her having escaped with Sylvia out of Liége, and placed herself in communication with the enemy. Inflexible to the last, strong in his duty towards the interests of the country he loved and the King whom he despised, he had done that which honour demanded and made prisoners of both women.
"Yet," he said bitterly to the Comtesse, as he informed her of what must be done, "be cheered. Our positions must soon be reversed. The old walls of this Citadel and of the Chartreuse will not long resist the battering pieces and mortars, or the double grenades, that the Earl of Marlborough is known to have with him, and then--well, then!--you will be free. I shall be the prisoner."