"It would be best, even though, unhappily, forgiveness plays no part in my desire. Questions might be asked, explanations required; nay," and once more the deep blue eyes looked full into Bevill's, "some of monsieur's brother mousquetaires may be here." And now those eyes looked strangely; almost it seemed as though they conveyed a menace. Yet, Bevill asked himself, even as a chill seemed to strike to his heart, as icy fingers seemed to clutch at it, could this woman be false; a traitress to one who had helped and succoured her? Was she no better than a female Sparmann? "She spoke," he said to himself, "of Him Who pardons all sinners; she besought mercy for those who had molested her. Can such as she be a spy? I will never believe it." Then, suddenly gazing down at her--and now the intensity of his glance equalled her own, while he saw she did not blench beneath it--he said, not roughly, yet determinately: "Have done with equivocations, madame, with pointed words," remembering the accentuation of those words "monsieur's brother mousquetaires." "Speak plainly. Truth, openness, are ever best." "If," the Comtesse said now, though still all was not open, her meaning not altogether apparent, "if you are what I believe--nay, what I know you to be--and you are discovered, your life is in awful danger. If you reach Liége you will, if betrayed, never quit it alive." "Who shall betray me to my death? Answer me. Since you have told so much, tell more. What is it you know, and who and what are you?" "A woman," the Comtesse answered. "One who does not betray gallant men to their deaths." "This death you speak of is certain?" "Certain. Beyond all doubt. For you are----" "What?" "Listen. Bend down from your horse. Not even they," with a glance above to where the servants were, "must hear." "Great Heaven!" Bevill exclaimed when he had done so and she had whispered in his ear. For the words she had thus whispered were: "You are an Englishman, and your name is not Le Blond. Have I not said truly? If you are discovered your doom is certain." CHAPTER VII. The names of some of its past rulers as well as Spanish governors have stamped themselves deeply over all Brabant; and scarcely was there an inn or wayside hostelry to be found in the towns and villages surrounding the old capital of Brussels that did not bear for sign either that of "La Duchesse de Parma," "Le Duc de Brabant," "Le Comte d'Egmont," or, greater still, "Le Prince d'Orange," it being William the Silent, the great Liberator, to whom reference was made.