"I will," he said. I knew I could trust him, and I went in to the Duchess, closing the door behind me. A change had come over the room since I had left it. The moon had risen and was flinging its cold white light through the twisted and shattered framework of the window, to fall in three bright panels on the floor. The torches in the street had for the most part burned out, or been extinguished. In place of the red glare, the shouts and the crash of glass, the atmosphere of battle and strife I had left, I found this silvery light and a stillness made more apparent by the distant hum of many voices. Mistress Anne was standing just within the threshold, her face showing pale against the gloom, her hands clasped. The Duchess was kneeling by her husband, but she looked up as I entered. "They will let us all go," I said bluntly; it was best to tell the tale at once--"except the one who hurt the patrol, that is." It was strange how differently the two women received the news; while Mistress Anne flung her hands to her face with a sobbing cry of thankfulness, and leaned against the wall crying and shaking, my lady stood up straight and still, breathing hard but saying nothing. I saw that she did not need to ask what would be done to the one who was excepted. She knew. "No," she murmured at last, her hands pressed to her bosom, "we cannot do it! Oh, no, no!" "I fear we must," I said gently--calmly, too, I think. Yet in saying it I was not quite myself. An odd sensation was growing upon me in the stillness of the room. I began on a sudden, I did not know why, to thrill with excitement, to tremble with nervousness, such as would rather have become one of the women than a man. My head grew hot, my heart began to beat quickly. I caught myself looking out, listening, waiting for something to happen, something to be said. It was something more terrible, as it seemed to me, than the din and crash of the worst moments of the assault. What was it? What was it that was threatening my being? An instant and I knew. "Oh, no, never!" cried the Duchess again, her voice quivering, her face full of keenest pain. "We will not give you up. We will stand or fall together, friend." Give _you_ up! Give _you_ up! Ha! The veil was lifted now, and I saw what the something with the cold breath going before it was. I looked quietly from her to her husband; and I asked--I fancy she thought my question strangely irrelevant at that moment, "How is he? Is he better?" "Much better. He knew me for a moment," she answered. "Then he seemed to sink away again. But his eyes were quite clear." I stood gazing down at his thin face, which had ever looked so kindly into mine. My fingers played idly with the knot of my sword. "He will live?" I asked abruptly, harshly.