The obstinacy with which she insisted on knowing his name made the pretended sailor hesitate between prudence and love. The vexation of a desired woman is powerfully attractive; her anger, like her submission, is imperious; many are the fibres she touches in a man’s heart, penetrating and subjugating it. Was this scene only another aspect of Mademoiselle de Verneuil’s coquetry? In spite of his sudden passion the unnamed lover had the strength to distrust a woman thus bent on forcing from him a secret of life and death. “Why has my rash indiscretion, which sought to give a future to our present meeting, destroyed the happiness of it?” he said, taking her hand, which she left in his unconsciously. Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who seemed to be in real distress, was silent. “How have I displeased you?” he said. “What can I do to soothe you?” “Tell me your name.” He made no reply, and they walked some distance in silence. Suddenly Mademoiselle de Verneuil stopped short, like one who has come to some serious determination. “Monsieur le Marquis de Montauran,” she said, with dignity, but without being able to conceal entirely the nervous trembling of her features, “I desire to do you a great service, whatever it may cost me. We part here. The coach and its escort are necessary for your protection, and you must continue your journey in it. Fear nothing from the Republicans; they are men of honor, and I shall give the adjutant certain orders which he will faithfully execute. As for me, I shall return on foot to Alencon with my maid, and take a few of the soldiers with me. Listen to what I say, for your life depends on it. If, before you reach a place of safety, you meet that odious man you saw in my company at the inn, escape at once, for he will instantly betray you. As for me,--” she paused, “as for me, I fling myself back into the miseries of life. Farewell, monsieur, may you be happy; farewell.” She made a sign to Captain Merle, who was just then reaching the brow of the hill behind her. The marquis was taken unawares by her sudden action. “Stop!” he cried, in a tone of despair that was well acted. This singular caprice of a girl for whom he would at that instant have thrown away his life so surprised him that he invented, on the spur of the moment, a fatal fiction by which to hide his name and satisfy the curiosity of his companion. “You have almost guessed the truth,” he said. “I am an _emigre_, condemned to death, and my name is Vicomte de Bauvan. Love of my country has brought me back to France to join my brother. I hope to be taken off the list of _emigres_ through the influence of Madame de Beauharnais, now the wife of the First Consul; but if I fail in this, I mean to die on the soil of my native land, fighting beside my friend Montauran. I am now on my way secretly, by means of a passport he has sent me, to learn if any of my property in Brittany is still unconfiscated.”