"Thought?" she said, tapping her little foot on the floor, and with her strong right hand swaying the chair to and fro like a feather--"have I thought of it? What else have I done for many days and weeks? But whether he will love me or cast me off--the die is thrown. I am his and not another's. I may take revenge--for that is in my blood. I may cause him to suffer as he has made me suffer--and the woman also--especially the woman, the spy's daughter! But that does not alter the fact. I am his, and if he would, even when chained to the oar of the galley, a slave among slaves--he could whistle me to his side like a fawning dog! For I am his slave--his slave!" The last words were spoken almost inaudibly, as if to herself. "And to the galleys he shall go!" said the Jesuit, "you have said it, and the idea is a good one. There he will be out of mischief. Yet he can be produced, if, in the time to come, his cousin the Bearnais, arrived at the crown of France, has time to make inquiries after him!" A knife glittered suddenly before the eyes of the Jesuit. It was in the firm white hand of the girl vowed to the Society. "See," she hissed, letting each word drop slowly from her lips, "see, Doctor Mariana, my uncle, you are not afraid of death--I know--but you do not wish to die now. There are so many things unfinished--so much yet to do. I know you, uncle! Now let me take my will of this young man. Afterwards I am at your service--for ever--for ever--more faithfully than before!" "How can I trust you?" said the Jesuit; "to-morrow you might go mad again!" "These things do not happen twice in a lifetime," said Valentine la Niña, "and as for Jean d'Albret, I shall put him beyond the reach of any second chance!" Her uncle nodded his head. He knew when a woman has the bit between her teeth, and though he had a remedy even for such cases, he judged that the present was not the time to use it. So Valentine la Niña went out, the knife still in her hand. * * * * * The Jesuit of Toledo threw himself back on his writing-chair and wiped his brow with a handkerchief. "_Ouff!_" he cried, emptying his chest with a gust of relief, "this is what it is to have to do with that wild animal, Woman! In Madrid they tame the tiger, till it takes victual from its keeper's very hand. He is its master, almost its lover; I have seen the tiger arch its back like a cat under the caress. It sleeps with the arm of the keeper about its neck! Till one day--one day--the tiger that was tamed falls upon the tamer, the master, the lover, the friend! So with a woman. Have I not trained and nurtured, pruned and cared for this soul as for mine own. She was tame. She knew no will but mine. _Clack!_ In a moment, at sight of a comely youth in a court suit asleep, as Endymion on some Latmian steep, she is wild again. Better to let her go than perish, keeping her."