He took a gulp from a glass at his side, and bent to write in his book. His guards laid hands on their victim. With a shriek, St Denys tore himself free, and fell at the feet of the woman. “Théroigne!” he cried, abasing himself before her--clutching at her skirt, “don’t let them take me--me, that have lain in your arms!” Grovelling on the floor, he turned his agonised face to the president. “She did not denounce me, monsieur! your generosity misinterpreted her motive.” (He caught again at the dress, writhing in his dreadful shame.) “Say you did not mean it! Give me a little time to repent. I have wronged you, Théroigne; but I never ceased to love you in my heart. Give me time, in mercy, and I will explain. You have not seen. You don’t know the foulness and the horror of it!--Théroigne!” Looking up, he saw the stony impassibility of her face, and sank upon the boards, moaning “Pardon--pardon!” She stood gazing down upon this poor revealed baseness--this idol self-deposed. “Pardon!” she said at last, in a quiet, even passionless voice. “And do you conceive, monsieur, the exorbitance of your demand? But I will put the case to these citizens, and take their verdict.” She raised her beautiful hard face, addressing the board-- “What price, messieurs, for an innocence ravished under pretext of a union of free-wills--a union that was to be more indissoluble than marriage, yet that lasted only a summer’s day? What price for a broken contract when the shame threatened; for the dastardly desertion of a wounded comrade; for the bitter desolation of a heart doubly widowed and slandered through its trust? What price for the ruined honour of a family, for the curse of a father? What price for exile from all the peace of life; for--my God! what price for a faith, that was so beautiful, destroyed; for a name that necessity has made infamous amongst men?” She paused, and a loud murmur from her listeners eddied through the room. She caught at her skirt, seeking to release it from the clutch of him that held it. It was doubtful if the dying wretch took in much of the significance of her words. He crouched there, only whimpering and swaying and entreating her half articulately. “Thou wouldst always teach me the immortality of such a faith,” she cried in quick passionateness, “whilst thou wert giving me to an immortality of shame.” Suddenly she threw her hands to her face. “Oh me! oh me!” she wailed in a broken voice. For the first time some core of anguish in Ned seemed to melt and weep itself away. “It is come at last,” his heart exulted. “She will pardon him.” As swiftly as it had seized her the emotion fled. She held out her open palms, as if in a devil’s blessing, above the prostrate man. “They are soiled with blood!” she cried. “Let the victims, when my name is execrated, testify against you, not me!”