"Mademoiselle, you spoke justly," I cried in French. "Here is a heart that only beats to serve you, without seeking, ay, even without desiring a reward, except that which you must give me of your pleasure or without, when I shall see upon your face some promise of your happiness repaired!" The glance of involuntary horror that she gave me, and the swift withdrawal of her hand from my embrace, should have warned me of my fatuous self-betrayal. But there is no limit to the errors of a truly clever mind astray in seeking to retrieve itself. I thought that I had angered her in venturing to hint that her disease of sorrow might be cured. "Pardon me," I pleaded earnestly, "I have offended you with words. If any part of me could so offend, that member I would straightaway destroy." She looked at me more kindly, and even now I believe that she was touched by the sincerity and singleness of my devotion. "Rise, monsieur!" she murmured with an effort. "I thank you for your sympathy, but it is not seemly that you kneel to me." I obeyed, and at her nod resumed my chair. She closed her eyes, and for a long period was deathly still. Her lovely face was extraordinarily pallid and she scarcely seemed to breathe. Then I thought her in the throes of reawakened grief for Cavanagh's death, and my pain to watch her was intense. Now I know that in her silence she was struggling with herself. Or rather that pity in her, a woman's unfailing pity for a loving being, however wretchedly unworthy of compassion, was striving to silence her ideas of duty. At last her eyes opened and she looked at me. Her regard was mysteriously wistful, cold, and it seemed to me a little self-ashamed. Indeed, she faintly blushed. "Sir William Dagmar does not know that you can speak French!" she murmured. "You have deceived him, monsieur! That is wrong. I think that you should go away." Thrice triple fool I was. Her pity had cajoled her conscience and she was offering me a chance to escape. I, in my infatuation, only thought that she chided me for my deceit. "Ah! mademoiselle," I muttered. "It is true that I deceived him, but when I did so I was penniless and starving. I pray you from my soul that you will not bid me leave you nor inform Sir William Dagmar of my sin." "You do not wish to go?" "Mademoiselle!" I cried, "not though it were to Paradise assured!" She blushed deeply, nevertheless her eyes hardened and she frowned. She was doubtless thinking-- "He has had his opportunity. His fate henceforth must be upon his own head! I wash my hands of it!" I dreamed she was offended at my too ardent gaze. I lowered my eyes at once in sad humility. "Stay then!" she said, and her voice assumed a tone of witching tenderness. I looked up in quick delight to meet a dazzling smile. With such a smile Judith lured Holofernes to destruction. But it needed not that with me; I was destroyed already.