But just because hers was such a nature--loyal, pure of spirit, faithful, hard as steel in her sense of honour--I thought I saw my way clear. It was not a pleasant way, it was a way that bade good-bye for ever to my dream of a rose-leaf, fragrant memory. But what would the shattering of even so dear a dream as that matter, if only I saved her from herself? "Did you guess," I went on at length, "that I love Suzanne D'Orfeuil, and that she knows I love her?" "Mademoiselle de Narbonne?" "No! Not Mademoiselle de Narbonne, with estates in Bigorre and Bearn, but Suzanne D'Orfeuil, nurse to Monsieur Gaston de Foix." "Suzanne D'Orfeuil? Yes, I understand now what you mean. Oh! my friend, I am sorry, very, very sorry." "You need not be; no man is the worse for loving a good woman. Love is a fire, and when it does not consume it purifies; so do not be sorry. But she was not the only one, nor the first. You remember?" "Brigitta?" "Brigitta. You saw how Mademoiselle blazed out at Morsigny when she supposed--you know what she supposed well enough?" "But she was wrong, you told her she was wrong." "Suppose," said I slowly, "suppose I leave a letter at Poictiers telling her that she was right, and that I had lied? Suppose I tell her that the woman Brigitta has a claim upon me which none but a wife should have upon a man, a claim which not even such a scoundrel as I can deny? I am not all bad, you see; if I were, Mademoiselle would have found me out; and being not all bad, I admit the claim. Suppose the letter goes further, and says that all through it is Brigitta I have loved, but that being at Morsigny I passed my time pleasantly--would she follow me then?" "I understand," he repeated, his brows wrinkled in the effort to follow not alone the meaning of the words, but the full extent of the lie they told. "I am not good at--at--tricks of speech, but I think I understand. No, Suzanne de Narbonne would not follow you then. And you could say that to the woman you love?" "I could say it because I love her!" A bitter draught is none the less bitter for being of our own mixing, and what I drank in that hour is past telling. I suppose my torment of spirit showed in my face, for he laid his hand on mine holding me fast. "Did I not rightly say that those who greatly doubt can greatly love? And greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend." Some will say, Why not have told your lie to Mademoiselle there in Orthez? But that would have spoiled all. In her then mood, and coming so quickly on the heels of my past urging, she would have seen through the subterfuge, scoffing it for the clumsy falsehood it was. Let a week pass, let her emotions cool, let her healthy youth regain its dominance, and the clumsy lie of Orthez would seem a scoundrel truth in Poictiers.