Oh, the irony of it! the unconscious, sardonic irony! yes, and the pathos, too. They had thought it all over, these two--the gentle unworldly priest and the generous, tender-hearted, too grateful woman, they had thought it all over, and now in their swerveless cleaving to what they held to be right, they were as inflexible, as inexorable, as stonily determined as Louis himself. But if argument and pleading failed, there at least remained protest. "Remember, this is not done with my consent." In an instant she was Suzanne D'Orfeuil de Narbonne, and turned to freeze me with a stare. "Consent! Monsieur, consent? You forget yourself surely? When I desire either your consent or your approval, I shall ask for it; till then I take leave to decide and act for myself." There was no more to be said. With such a bow as a Mademoiselle de Narbonne had a right to claim from a Gaspard Hellewyl I withdrew. Men and women, liars all, have whispered that, having crept like a traitor into Morsigny under cover of a woman's skirts, I now tried to purchase my own safety by the sacrifice of Mademoiselle de Narbonne. The men have not repeated the lie but the women knew they were safe. It has been openly alleged that, knowing her loftiness of mind, her generous-hearted impulsiveness, I so played upon her sense of gratitude that she took the desperate step of substituting herself in my place, and that I, a traitor to the King and to my salt, accepted the sacrifice like a coward and a cur. More lies! the only truth being that the loftiness of spirit is there, and the generous loyal heart is there. But that is the way of the liar: even the devil himself would not be believed if he did not mix some truth with his falsehood. But of every fair mind, of every one who reads this record for the first time, I ask, in the face of such a withering rebuke as she gave me at the last, Was there room for further protest? But if there was no more to be said, there was more to be done--there was the saving her from herself in spite of herself. To this end I sounded Brother Paul when presently he joined me, his mouth full of excuses for the sharpness of her rebuff. "Do not be vexed with her, my son, she is nerve-weary, over-wrought, and fretted by care. For three nights she has not slept, for two days she has laboured and planned that no harm may come to Morsigny in our absence, and all that time she has not eaten as much as would keep a bird alive. Her spirit alone keeps her up." "And yet you send her to Plessis?" "Let us not speak of that, but rather how good may come out of evil." "Tell me your plan."