"By Heaven's grace we will never part. Once free of this, once safe, and--together--always together--we will never part on earth again. Heart up, my sweet! Heart up!" While, as he spoke, the pressure of his hand by hers told him that, as far as resolution could come to her aid, she would never despair. Nay, more--if such a thing might be--it conveyed in some subtle form to him the knowledge, the assurance, that if there lay in her power any chance of saving him, that chance would be exerted. Yet how, he asked himself, could she do aught towards saving him? What was there to be done? His presence in this city, his assumption of being French while actually the subject of France's most determined enemy, was enough. Meanwhile, there were others present--one other at least, the Comtesse--to whom this declaration of Sylvia had, if it came as a surprise at all, only come as one by the manner in which it was made. For she had seen enough, had observed enough to comprehend how, day by day, this man and woman had been gradually drawing nearer and nearer to one another; to discern how dear to each was the presence of the other, and to perceive that, as so they were drawn closer and closer together, the strands that drew them must tighten more and more until they could never be unloosed. But if this avowal carried, therefore, no surprise to Madame de Valorme, to Francbois it brought an added agony to that which had gone before, even if, to him also, it brought no surprise. For he could not but ask himself what he had gained by his betrayal of this man--a betrayal that alone would have been justified, alone might have claimed extenuation, had it been the outcome of an honest, straightforward desire to serve the country he belonged to by injuring its enemies. "Gained?" he reflected. He had gained nothing, while losing much, perhaps everything. Sylvia Thorne loved this man; she was not the woman to ever love another--above all, not him who had betrayed the beloved one. And, yes he had given this rival into the hands of the enemy. It might be, it doubtless was the case, that he had brought about his doom; but there--there!--but a few paces from him was one, his own connection, who was now about to send him also to his doom. For she knew enough to do so; she had told him so that night in the lane when, after the Englishman had disarmed him, she had taken him apart, even as, in the same breath, she had told him that if harm came to that other so it should come to him. And now--now--it had come to that other. In a few more moments it would come to him. She was about to speak. Gained! Out of his own mouth, by his own evil disposition, he had brought about his own fate. As his mind was tortured thus the Comtesse de Valorme commenced the exposure which must lead to his undoing.