“Roxalanne, I did not come to Lavedan to say 'Good-bye' to you. I seek from you a welcome, not a dismissal.”
“Yet my dismissal is all that I can give. Will you not take my hand? May we not part in friendly spirit?”
“No, we may not; for we do not part at all.”
It was as the steel of my determination striking upon the flint of hers. She looked up to my face for an instant; she raised her eyebrows in deprecation; she sighed, shrugged one shoulder, and, turning on her heel, moved towards the door.
“Anatole shall bring you refreshment ere you go,” she said in a very polite and formal voice.
Then I played my last card. Was it for nothing that I had flung away my wealth? If she would not give herself, by God, I would compel her to sell herself. And I took no shame in doing it, for by doing it I was saving her and saving myself from a life of unhappiness.
“Roxalanne!” I cried. The imperiousness of my voice arrested and compelled her perhaps against her very will.
“Monsieur?” said she, as demurely as you please.
“Pardieu, you do not. I will tell you. You are sending your father to the scaffold.”
She turned livid, her step faltered, and she leant against the frame of the doorway for support. Then she stared at me, wide-eyed in horror.
“That is not true,” she pleaded, yet without conviction. “He is not in danger of his life. They can prove nothing against him. Monsieur de Saint-Eustache could find no evidence here--nothing.”
“Yet there is Monsieur de Saint-Eustache's word; there is the fact--the significant fact--that your father did not take up arms for the King, to afford the Chevalier's accusation some measure of corroboration. At Toulouse in these times they are not particular. Remember how it had fared with me but for the King's timely arrival.”
That smote home. The last shred of her strength fell from her. A great sob shook her, then covering her face with her hands “Mother in heaven, have pity on me!” she cried. “Oh, it cannot be, it cannot be!”
Her distress touched me sorely. I would have consoled her, I would have bidden her have no fear, assuring her that I would save her father. But for my own ends, I curbed the mood. I would use this as a cudgel to shatter her obstinacy, and I prayed that God might forgive me if I did aught that a gentleman should account unworthy. My need was urgent, my love all-engrossing; winning her meant winning life and happiness, and already I had sacrificed so much. Her cry rang still in my ears, “It cannot be, it cannot be!”
