Martin? No, there was no more a Martin. Martin had followed and found the gleam, and a flicker of its glory still played in the smile on his dead face. In the end the Lord God gave him his heart's desire, to die for his Monsieur Gaspard. "Waste" was his last word, "waste! waste!" But it was not his own life he mourned for. That he gave without a grudge. But the gift seemed to him as nothing because it failed in its purpose. Waste? God who has mercy on our failures forbid the thought! How can love go waste? Kissing him on the forehead, I laid him gently back upon the floor, and looking round the room, rose to my feet. "I am ready, gentlemen." Father Paul stood beside the overturned table, Brigitta was on her knees lamenting over Jan Meert, but Suzanne was nowhere to be seen. CHAPTER XXX MADEMOISELLE SPEAKS To decide where my part of the story begins is the difficulty. A chain swung across a gulf from a staple fixed into a rock has a strain put upon it at a certain link; does the strain begin at that link or at the staple? Of the chain of my knowledge of Gaspard Hellewyl, one end is fixed in a sordid Paris inn, the other--I think the Eternal Himself holds it, for God is Love. Upon many of the links of that chain a special strain falls; the link of Tours, of the Grey Leap, of the morning he rode to La Voulle with my rose in his bonnet, of the day he left Morsigny between the lines of foes turned friends, of the August night in the _Coq Rouge_. At any one of these my story might begin, and though it paralleled what he has already written, it would be no twice-told tale, for a woman does not read motives with the eyes of a man. All through he saw poverty, shame, failure; while I know there were riches, clear honour, and achievement; a wealth that to me outweighed Narbonne, a humble seeking after that which was highest, and a winning of a greater glory than any gift from a King's hand. But because it has been told already I let it pass, and slip out of the darkened room into the yet darker passage beyond the door. Of Martin's death I knew nothing. Events, hopes, despairs, fears, yes, and joys too, had so crowded one upon the other that my brain was in a whirl. One thing only was clear: Gaspard was so far safe, and would be until the King's pleasure was known; that much the woman Brigitta had told me. Instantly upon his arrest an express was to be sent to Plessis. There the King lay sick, three-parts dead some whispered, and it was her belief that my dear one's life hung upon Louis' mood of the moment. So had it been with her. While she looked for nothing less than death the King had repented, turning her over to Jan Meert and life at a caprice. That gave me hope for Gaspard.