And something else was ended too. Lucienne should be starting for England to-morrow. Would she go now? Why not? There was all the more reason for her departure. He should never see her again . . . and even in his hour of renunciation, the highest of his life, he had never contemplated exactly that. The jailor was right. He wished that he had sent a message—not to Gilbert, but to her. It might have been in her hands by now. He smoothed out the crumpled ball of paper, then threw it away with a gesture half anger, half regret. Of what use—of what use! With Lucienne he had had his chance—and had chosen not to take it. It looked now inconceivable folly; for when he had turned his back on what honour forbade him to take he had known—or at least he had recognised afterwards—that there were other things still left for him in life. But since he was to end like this the sacrifice seemed barren beyond the power of speech. He was to die without having known the best that life could give him. It would have been some comfort to remember at the last that he had had his heart’s desire. It was the very poorest kind of consolation to feel that he might have known it, and had not. It seemed to the young man that he could better have borne to see Gilbert and Lucienne together with his own living eyes (as indeed he had schooled himself to realise that he must see them) than that their union should date from an epoch when he, blown somewhere about the winds of the world, could no longer behold it. He had an extreme reluctance to die, in any case; but this thought stung him to the most passionate revolt. It raged in him for a little while, and then the very vehemence with which he dashed himself in thought against the implacable barrier of Death restored him to a former mood. He had to die like a gentleman. It was perhaps, after all, good that in this matter he had lived like one too. He had no other creed. * * * * * * The Chevalier de Maisonfleur and his daughter were alone when Saint-Ermay’s turnkey threw open the door of the Chambre des Victoires. The old man laid aside his book, the girl her knitting, with alacrity at his entrance. “A very pleasant surprise, Monsieur le Vicomte,” exclaimed the former as he welcomed him. “It is not yet nine o’clock. We are unduly favoured.” “It is I who am favoured,” returned Louis. “I had no conception of how long a solitary morning and afternoon could be.” A shadow swept over the Chevalier’s face. “So, too, are four years, with only an old man for company,” he said, sighing. His daughter’s cheek, half concealed by a pale curl as she bent hastily to pick up her ball of wool, flushed scarlet for a moment. Louis looked away in an embarrassed pity; there was nothing to say, and he was glad when M. de Maisonfleur, resuming his usual cheerful, courteous self, set out in pursuit of other topics. Five minutes later M. des Essars came in.