"You are noble," she said; "I knew it when I saw you at Collioure on the hillside--more, a prince in your own land, near to the throne even. So am I--and Philip the King himself would not deny me. He is your country's enemy. Yet at my request he would stay his hand. He must fight the English. He must subdue the Low Countries. That is his oath. But if you will--if you will--he would aid the Bearnais, or better still, you yourself to a throne, and give me--who can say what?--perhaps this very Roussillon for a dower. For I am close of kin to the King. He would acknowledge me as such. I have vowed a vow, but now it is almost paid; and if it were not I would go to the Pope himself, though I walked every step of the road to Rome!" "I cannot--I cannot----" cried John d'Albret. "Thank God, I am not of the first-born of kings, whose hands are put up to the highest bidder. Where I have loved, there will I wed or not at all!" "Ah, cruel!" cried Valentine la Niña, stamping her foot--"cruel, not only to me, but to her whom you say you love. Think you she will be safe from the Society, from the Holy Office in France? There is no rack or torture perhaps, no Place of Eyes. But was Henry of Valois safe, who slew the Duke of Guise? From whose bosom came forth Jacques Clement? My uncle put the knife in his hand and blessed him ere he went. For me he would do more. Think--this Claire of yours is condemned already. She is young. By your own telling she has many lovers. She will be happy. I know the heart of such maids. Besides, she has never promised you anything--never humbled herself to you as I--I, Valentine la Niña, who till now have been the proudest maid in Spain!" "I am not worthy," cried the Abbé John. "I cannot; I dare not; I will not!" "Ah," said Valentine la Niña, with a long rising inflection, and drawing herself back from him, "I have found it ever so with you heretics. You are willing to die--to suffer. Because then you would wear the martyr's crown, and have your name commemorated--in books, on tablets, and be lauded by the outcasts of Geneva. But for your own living folk you will do nothing. With all Roussillon, from Salses to the Pyrenees, for my dowry (Philip would be glad to be rid of it--and perhaps also of me--my friends of the Society are too strong for him), there would be an end to this prisoning and burning and torturing through the land. Teruel and Frey Tullio we would send to their own place. By a word you could save thousands. Yet you will not. You think only of one chit of a girl, who laughs at you, who cares not the snap of her finger for you!" She stopped, panting with her own vehemence. "Likely enough," said the Abbé John, "the more is the pity. But that cannot change my heart."