"I am afraid that the St. Alais are cut off in the Arènes," he said coolly. "And they are not enough to man the walls. Those cursed Cevennols have been too many for us. As for our friends--it is as I expected; they have left me to die like a bull in the ring. Well, we must die goring." But in the midst of my admiration of his courage a kind of revulsion seized me. "And Denise?" I said, grasping his arm fiercely. "Are we to leave her to perish?" He looked at me, his lip curling. "True," he said, with a sneering smile. "I forgot. You are not of us." "I am thinking of her!" I cried, raging. And in that moment I hated him. But his mood changed while he looked at me. "You are right, Monsieur," he said, in a different tone. "Go! There may be a chance; but the church is by the Capuchins, and those dogs were baying round it when we fell back. They are ten to one, or--still there may be a chance," he continued with decision. "Go, and if you find her, and escape, do not forget Froment of Nîmes." "By the postern?" I said. "Yes--take this," he answered; and abruptly drawing a pistol from his pocket, he forced it on me. "Go, and I must go too. Good fortune, Monsieur, and farewell. And you, bark away, you dogs!" he continued bitterly, addressing the unconscious mob. "The bull is on foot yet, and will toss some of you before the ring closes!" CHAPTER XXIV. THE MILLENNIUM. With that word he thrust me towards the door that led to the inner hall and the postern; and, knowing, as I did, that every moment I delayed might stand for a life, and that within a minute or two at most the rear of the building would be beset, and my chance of egress lost, it was to be expected that I should not hesitate. Yet I did. The main body of Froment's followers had flocked upstairs, whence they could be heard firing from the roof and windows. He stood almost alone in the middle of the floor; in the attitude of one listening and thinking, while a group of green ribbons, who seemed to be the most determined of his followers, hung growling about the barricaded door. Something in the gloomy brightness of the room, and the disorder of the barricaded windows, something in the loneliness of his figure as he stood there, appealed to me; I even took one step towards him. But at that moment he looked up, his face grown dark; and he waved me off with a gesture almost of rage. I knew then that I had but a small part of his thoughts; and that at this moment, while the edifice he had built up with so much care and so much risk was crumbling about him, he was thinking not of us, but of those who had promised and failed him; who had given good words, and left him to perish. And I went.