She moved a step towards him then, and if her voice had trembled, her eyes were clear and untroubled as they met his full. "You shall not need to," she said quietly, and there was a long pause. It was he who looked away at last, and then she spoke. "I asked you at no one’s prompting," she said softly. "See, Monsieur, let there be truth between us. That at least I can give, and will—yes, always. He, the man you saw, asked me to help him, to help others, and I told him no, my hands were tied. If he had asked for ever, I must still have said the same thing; and if it had cut my heart in two, I would still have said it. But about Marguerite, that was different. She knows nothing of any plots, she is no conspirator. I would not ask, if it touched your honour. I would not indeed." "Are you sure?" he asked in a strange voice, and she answered his question with another. "Would you have pledged your honour if you had not been sure?" He gave a short, hard laugh. "Upon my soul, child, I think so," he said, and the colour ran blazing to her face. "Oh, Monsieur, I keep faith!" she cried in a voice that came from her heart. Her outstretched hands came near to touching him, and he turned away with a sudden wrench of his whole body. "And it is hard—yes, hard enough," he said bitterly, and went out with a mist before his eyes. CHAPTER XXI A NEW ENVIRONMENT Madelon Pinel stood by the window of the inn parlour, and looked out with round shining eyes. She was in a state of pleasing excitement, and her comely cheeks vied in colour with the carnation riband in her cap, for this was her first jaunt with her husband since their marriage, and an expedition from quiet Rancy to the eight-miles-distant market-town was a dissipation of the most agreeable nature. The inn looked out on the small, crowded Place, where a great traffic of buying and selling, of cheapening and haggling was in process, and she chafed with impatience for her husband to finish his wine, and take her out into the thick of it again. He, good man, miller by the flour on his broad shoulders, stood at his ease beside her, smiling broadly. No one, he considered, could behold him without envy; for Madelon was the acknowledged belle of the countryside, and well dowered into the bargain. Altogether, a man very pleased with life, and full of pride in his married state, as he lounged beside his pretty wife, and drank his wine, one arm round her neat waist. With a roll and a flourish the diligence drew up, and Madelon’s excitement grew.