If it failed to shame them, being coarse-grained peasants, it moved Mademoiselle to an unendurable despair. With a last indignant word, some acid, biting phrase of scorn, she knelt to renew her folly of descent. But to do Hugues and the other justice, if they were careful of themselves they were careful also of her, for even before I could reach her they held her back. "Leave me go, you cowards, leave me go!" she cried, struggling, her face wet with unconscious tears of rage and shame. "My God! is there not one man amongst you!" "It is for Navarre," said I, giving my bitter mood rein, now she was safe. "It is for Foix and Navarre; let me beg you both to fall down fifty feet for the glory of Foix and Navarre. The thought will comfort you--till you hit the stones at the bottom." It was not a very manly gibe, but in the best of us, and I do not claim to be that, there is a beast who only needs rousing, and at that moment the man in me was not uppermost. From the hilltop I had sunk to the valley. My new found and newer trampled love was too raw in its wounds to be just. Had not Mademoiselle, in her very last words, called me a coward with the rest? And yet it was she whose scorn and contumely forbade me to climb. "Oh, that I were a man!" she said, swallowing her sobs till they choked her; "then would I sooner lie dead with the child." While she was speaking, Brother Paulus had risen and stripped himself of his clinging frock. Now, flinging it aside, he turned to me. "So would I; she is right, Monsieur Hellewyl; the shame of it is not to be borne." "A man," said I, answering Mademoiselle, but laying the flat of my hand on the priest's breast, that he might do nothing useless. The spirit within him was strong to dare, but the flesh was weak. Had there been ten Father Pauls, they must have followed one another to the bottom of the cliff. "A man--that is, a true man--one trusts. Do you trust me, Mademoiselle?" "Oh, you are cruel!" she cried, but the sobs were softer. "Would you let the child die because of a girl's----?" she paused, searching for an adjective, but finding none that fitted her thought went on--"Must I ask your pardon, Monsieur? Must I humble myself to you? I'll do it, I'll do it gladly." "I would have you say: I trust you. Come what may, I trust you, now and always." As a child repeats its lesson she answered me, her face all drawn by pain, the tears still shining in her eyes. "I trust you, Monsieur, now and always, come what may."