She gazed slowly around on the group of battered men. There was no reproach in her look--Had she not failed as miserably as they?--and yet it held a word of injustice. She could not know that for her sake they carried these wounds. And Dominique Guyon, the one man who could have answered her thoughts, stared savagely at the ground, offering no defence. "Dominique Guyon," commanded M. Etienne, "four of you will relieve these _messieurs_ of their burden. Carry your master to the chapel, where you will find Father Launoy and Father Joly." "But pardon me, monsieur," interposed Amherst politely, "my soldiers will be proud to bear so gallant a foe." "I thank you "--M. Etienne's bow was stiff and obstinate--"but I assert again that I still command this fortress, and the bearers shall be of my choosing." Diane laid a hand on her uncle's arm. "He is dead," said she. "What matters it?" She did not understand this dispute. "Perhaps if I promise M. le General that these men shall return to him when they have laid my father in the chapel--" The General--a tall, lean, horse-faced man with a shrewd and not unkindly eye--yielded the point at once. "Willingly, mademoiselle, and with all the respect an enemy may pay to your sorrow." He ordered the men to give place to the new bearers. In the chapel Diane sank on her knees, but not to pray--rather to escape the consolations of the two priests and be alone with her thoughts. And her thoughts were not of her father. The stroke had fallen; but not yet could she feel the pain. He was happy; he alone of them all had kept his quiet vow, and died disdaining defeat; whereas she--ah, there lay the terrible thought!--she had not merely failed, had not been overpowered. In the crisis, beside her father's corpse, she had played the traitress to her resolve. The two priests moved about the body, arranging it, fetching trestles, draperies, and candles for the _lit de parade_, always with stealthy glances at the bowed figure in the shadow just within the door. But she knelt on, nor lifted her face. In the sunlit courtyard without the two commanders were still disputing. M. Etienne flatly refused to yield up his sword, maintaining that he had never surrendered, had agreed to no terms of capitulation; that the redcoats had swarmed over his walls in the temporary absence of their defenders, gathered at the gateway to parley under a flag of truce, and should be drawn off at once.