"All this has been told me, Princess, though not the precise reason for it: and since you desire me to be frank I will tell you that I have given some thought to that dead lad--that rival of mine (if you will permit the word) whom I never knew. The mystery of his death is a mystery to me still; but in all my blind guesses this somehow remained clear to me, that he had loved you, Princess; and this (again I ask your leave to say it), because I could understand it so well, forbade me to think unkindly of him." "He loved his honour better, sir." Her face had flushed darkly. "I am sorry, then, if I must suffer by comparison." "No, no," she protested. "Oh, why will you twist my words and force me to seem ungrateful? He died rather than have me to wife: you took me on the terms that within a few minutes you must die. For both of you the remedy was at hand, only _you_ chose to save me before taking it. On my knees, sir, I could thank you for that. The crueller were they that, when you stood up claiming your right to die, they broke the bargain and cheated you." "Princess," I said, after musing a moment, "if my surviving seemed to you so pitiable, there was another way." I pointed to her musket. "Yes, cavalier, and I will confess to you that when, having fired wide, they turned to go and the cheat was evident, twice before you pulled the bandage away I had lifted my gun. But I could not fire it, cavalier. To make me your executioner! Me, your wife--and while you thought so vilely of me!" "Faith," said I grimly, "it was asking too much, even for a Genoese! Yet again I think you overrate their little trick, since, after all"--I touched my own gunstock--"there remains a third way--the way chosen by young Odo of Rocca Serra." She put out a hand. "Sir, that way you need not take--if you will be patient and hear me!" "Lady," said I, "you may hastily despise me; but I am neither going to take that way, nor to be patient, nor to hear you. But I am, as you invited me, going to be very frank and confess to you, risking your contempt, that I am extremely thankful the Genoese did not shoot me, a while ago. Indeed, I do not remember in all my life to have felt so glad, as I feel just now, to be alive. Give me your gun, if you please." "I do not understand."