“You cannot. That you cannot do. Oh, I can bear no more,” she cried in a voice vibrating with pain and distress. “He is in your power to do with as you please. Do what you will and so let me free. If he be the man I believe, he will welcome death before my dishonour; and if he be not, at least you can spare me the pain of knowing it. You will not be merciful in one way, then, for the sake of God, be merciless in all. The sooner the end, the more welcome death in such a case.” “I must think of this,” he said sullenly. “What would you do?” Eyes and face and manner all full of fear. “You shall know this man for the scoundrel he is. You must not cast your life away for a worthless villain. I will have the truth made plain to you.” “Ah, now I see how you hate him,” she cried distractedly. “You would blacken his name even in my memory. How hard and harsh a man you are!” “It is right you should know the truth.” “I do not seek to know it. Spare me. I cannot bear the suspense. My very courage to die may be killed by delay; already I can feel it waning. A week of suspense and I should be coward enough even to wish to live.” “You shall know the truth. I will find it out; and when his rank unworthiness is proved to you, you will see the folly and madness of this last wild resolve. You will live to thank me yet, Gabrielle.” “Oh, why did I speak it, fool and coward that I am!” she cried, despairingly. “It is well you did,” he answered; and with this he left her. CHAPTER XVIII IN THE “TIGER’S DEN” While all these plans were being hurried forward for his release, Gerard took his imprisonment very philosophically. There was but one circumstance which caused him uneasiness--the doubt whether Dubois could have had time before he was placed under arrest to pass on the instructions he had given him. But he had no serious fear. If Dubois had been able to set things in motion there would soon be some effort on foot to secure his liberty; while if not, the worst could only be that he himself would be driven to announce his real rank to the Governor. He was indeed more than half disposed to regret having maintained silence at the moment of arrest. He had measured the lengths to which the Governor was prepared to go; and the brutal command to cut him down if he resisted was one not to be forgotten. That and the indignity to which he, Bourbon’s son, had been subjected by this tyrant should be paid for heavily. He had a recompense, however. Gabrielle had answered nobly to the test he had made. She loved him. He was sure of her now; and with that as a consolation to sustain him, the hours of his retirement passed lightly. When his gaolers entered and led him from the cell in which he had first been placed to one in which stood the instruments of torture, he regretted no longer that he had not avowed his identity.