"God in heaven!" I gasped to myself as I leaned back against the parapet, and drew my hand across my forehead, as if to wake myself from a dream. St. Armande did not notice my exclamation, he did not even observe my movement. His own excitement carried him away. "Promise," he said, and shook my arm in his earnest entreaty. "As there is a God above me I promise." "I believe you," he said simply, "and now I am going in." I made no offer to bear him company, and his slight figure drifted into the moonlight. I saw it clearly again, making a dark bar against the red glare in the open door of the hall, and then vanished from view. I was utterly thunderstruck by the discovery I had made. A hundred actions, a hundred tricks of gesture, of speech, of manner, should have disclosed St. Armande's identity to me. Now I knew it, it was all so simple and clear, that I wondered at my denseness in not having guessed through the disguise before. Now that I had discovered it however, now that my blindness was cured, what was I to do? I resolved on keeping the secret I had probed, and never once letting St. Armande know he was other than what he pretended to be. A great pity came up in my heart, for there was a time when I almost thought I loved this woman, and it required little conceit to see, after what had happened, that madame was prepared to make almost any sacrifice for my sake. I was sorry, more sorry than I can tell, for I knew my own hands were not clean in this matter, and I paced up and down, flinging bitter reproaches at myself, and utterly at a loss to plan out some way of escaping from the difficulty in which I was placed. I made up my mind that St. Armande, as I will still speak of the disguised chevalier, should be placed in no danger, resolving that as soon as the affair on which we were engaged was over, that I would send him, or rather her, with a message to the cardinal, and the message was to be one that, I hoped and trusted, would have the effect of making madame cease her foolish prank--I had it at this moment almost in my heart to be angry with her; but I could not, for the small voice that kept whispering to me-- "Thou art not free from blame." I was not; but nothing would induce me to add another wrong to the one I had committed. That in itself was sufficient to haunt me to the grave, and I shivered as I thought of the abbé's words, "It is what one carries beyond the grave that the Signor Cavaliere should think of." So alternately reproaching myself, and praying for aid, prayers that brought no relief, I passed the night, and in the small hours of the morning stole back into the castle. Round the fire in the great hall, the figures of my followers were stretched, all but one, who kept watch, but recognising me did not challenge. I passed by softly, and entered the other room. The abbé had dropped asleep over his breviary, the lamp burning low beside him.