Diane blushed, but put up a hand and began to uncoil the tresses. "Bateese has not answered me," she insisted. "I tell him that a man who should do such a feat as he named would live in song for ever and ever." "But I say to you humbly, ma'amzelle, that though he lived in song for ever and ever, the true sweetness of his life would be unknown to the singers; for he found it here under the branches, and, stepping forth to his great deed, he left the memory for a while, to meet him again and be his reward in Heaven." "And I say to you 'no,' and 'no,' and again 'no'!" cried Diane, springing to her feet--the childish, impetuous Diane of old. "It is in the great deed that he lives--the deed, and the moment that makes him everlasting! If Dominique now, or I, as these English came round the bend--" She paused, meeting Dominique's eyes. She had not said "or you," and could not say it. Why? Because Bateese was a cripple. "Bateese's is a cripple's talk," said their glances one to another, guiltily, avoiding him. Dominique's gaze, flinching a little, passed down the splendid coils of her hair and rested on the grass at her feet. She lifted a tress on her forefinger and smoothed it against the sunlight. "There was a war once," said she, "between the Greeks and the Persians; and the Persians overran the Greeks' country until they came to a pass in the mountains where a few men could stand against many. There three hundred of the Greeks had posted themselves, despising death, to oppose an army of tens and hundreds of thousands. The Persian king sent forward a horseman, and he came near and looked along the pass and saw but a few Greeks combing their hair and dressing it carefully, as I am dressing mine." "What happened, ma'amzelle?" "They died, and live in song for ever and ever!" She faced them, her cheeks glowing, and lifted a hand as the note of a sweet-toned bell rose upon the morning air above the voices of the birds; of the chapel-bell ringing the garrison to Mass. The two young men scrambled to their feet. "Come!" said Diane, and they walked back to the Fort together. CHAPTER XXIII. THE FLAGSTAFF TOWER. Time pressing, the Commandant had gone straight from the orderly-room in search of Father Joly. As a soldier and a good Catholic he desired to be shriven, and as a man of habit he preferred the old Cure to Father Launoy. To be sure the Cure was deaf as a post, but on the other hand the Commandant's worst sins would bear to be shouted. "There is yet one thing upon my conscience," he wound up. "The fact is, I feel pretty sure of myself in this business, but I have some difficulty in trusting God." It is small wonder that a confession so astonishing had to be repeated twice, and even when he heard it Father Joly failed to understand. "But how is it possible to mistrust God?" he asked.