"In order to persuade you, then, Madame," rejoined Lord Wentworth,--"for I mean to persuade you,--I will adopt another manner of speaking, and I will say to you: Madame, in an hour and a half the French will enter the city in triumph, and Vicomte d'Exmès with them. Tremble!" "What do you mean?" cried Diane, as the color fled from her cheeks. "What! Am I not sufficiently explicit?" said Lord Wentworth, approaching Diane with a laugh of sinister meaning. "I say to you: In an hour and a half, Madame, our rôles will be changed,--you will be free, and I a prisoner; Vicomte d'Exmès will come to restore you to liberty and love and happiness, and to cast me into a dungeon. Tremble!" "Why, pray, should I tremble?" Diane responded, retreating as far as the walls would allow from the sombre yet burning gaze of this man. "_Mon Dieu_! it is very easy to understand," said Lord Wentworth. "At this moment I am master; but in an hour and a half I shall be a slave,--in an hour and a quarter rather, for the minutes are flying. In an hour and a quarter I shall be in your power; now you are in mine. In an hour Vicomte d'Exmès will be here; but now I am here. So rejoice and tremble, Madame!" "My Lord, my Lord!" cried poor Diane, repulsing Lord Wentworth, with rapidly beating heart. "What do you want of me?" "What do I want of you!--of you!" said the governor in a hollow voice. "Don't come near me, or I will cry out; I will call for help, and dishonor you, villain!" exclaimed Diane, in an ecstasy of terror. "Cry out and call for help as much as you choose; it's all the same to me," Lord Wentworth rejoined with ominous tranquillity. "The house is deserted, and so are the streets; no one will answer your cries for at least an hour. Look! I have not even taken the trouble to close the doors and windows, so sure am I that no one will come in less than an hour." "But they will at the end of that time," Diane retorted; "and then I will accuse and denounce you, and my deliverers will kill you." "No," said Lord Wentworth, coldly, "for it is I who will kill myself. Do you imagine that I have any desire to survive the fall of Calais? In an hour I shall kill myself; I have made up my mind beyond recall. But before that I choose to give full play to my passion, and to satisfy my vengeance and my love in this last supreme hour. Come, my fair one, your resistance and your contempt are out of season now,--for I no longer beg, but command; I no longer implore, but demand." "And I die!" cried Diane, drawing a knife from her bosom. Before she had time to strike, Lord Wentworth sprang toward her, seized her weak little hands in his powerful ones, tore the knife from her grasp, and threw it far away.