He did indeed look like a desperate man, and Héloïse gazed at him with mingled pity and indignation. With all his gallantry, his reckless bravery, and his scorn of danger, he was but as a reed shaken by the wind when moral courage was in question. "Must we be parted?" she asked, gently. "It is for you to decide that, Raoul." He looked up surprised. "For me?" "Certainly. I cannot stay any more than can Henri. We know that you are ours at heart, and that only compulsion keeps you among Germans. Break loose from your bonds, and follow us to France!" "What madness!" exclaimed Raoul, springing to his feet. "Now, when war is imminent! It would be rank treachery!" "No, it would be a bold, courageous step to take,--a fearless confession of the truth. If you stay here you are false to yourself as well as to others. What should you resign? A country where you always have been, and always must be, a stranger, circumstances that have become intolerable, and a grandfather with whom you are in open warfare. The only one whom you have to consider--your mother--may, indeed, grieve over the destruction of her schemes, but she never would grieve over such a step on your part." "My name is Steinrück," said Raoul, gloomily. "You seem to forget that, Héloïse." "Yes, that is your name, but you are a Montigny from head to heel. You have often boasted to us that this was so; why deny it now? Is your father's name to dictate to you what you must think and feel? Has not your mother's blood an equal right? It draws you in every fibre towards her land, to her people, and should the holiest force in nature be outraged and denied? They would compel you to fight against us. _That_ would be 'rank treachery,'--a use to which you never can allow yourself to be put." Raoul had turned away; he would fain have been deaf to her words, but yet he drank them in eagerly. These were his own thoughts as they had besieged him day after day, refusing to be banished. The only thing that could now be his safeguard he did not possess,--a sense of duty. Duty had always been to him a ghastly phantom, and thus it appeared to him now; but it possessed the power to appall. "Hush, Héloïse!" he said, hoarsely. "I must not listen,--nay, I will not listen. Let me go." And in fact he turned as if to leave the room, but Héloïse approached him and laid her hand upon his arm. Her voice was full of eloquent entreaty, and there was the soft veiled look in her eyes which he knew but too well. "Come with us, Raoul. You will be consumed in this wretched struggle with yourself. It will be your ruin, and I--ah, do you think I can endure to part from you? that I shall suffer less than your mother in knowing you in the ranks of our foes? Follow us to France." "Héloïse, spare me!" The young Count made a desperate effort to escape; in vain. Sweeter and more alluring rang the tones from which he could not flee. The toils of the glittering serpent were thrown more and more closely around him.