"What is to be done with me?" the unfortunate woman asked listlessly. "Or for me? I have no hopes. Or only one--which will never be realised. My greatest hope," she almost whispered to herself, "is that at last I may lose all hope." "Be cheered," La Truaumont said, the roughness of the old soldier of fortune--part bravo, part hero, part swashbuckler--the usual ingredients of most soldiers of fortune!--smoothed out of his features so that, for the moment, he presented the appearance of a tender father talking to an unhappy child: "Be cheered. If that which we hope for and, hoping, greatly dare to attempt, should succeed, you will, you shall, rise as we rise. Whatever you can wish for, aspire to, he 'Monsieur Louis'--_le Dédaigneux_ as he is sometimes called, will see that you attain." "It is impossible," the girl whispered. "Impossible. What I wish for he cannot give, not possessing it himself." "Be not so sure. He is young, passionate, and, though many a silken thread has held him lightly for a time----" "I have no silken thread wherewith to bind him," Emérance said, her eyes cast down, her breast heaving painfully. "Nor do I desire any other woman's--women's----" "You do not understand, Emérance," La Truaumont said very gently. "Much as trouble and sorrow have taught you, you have not yet learnt all the secrets of a man's heart. A silken thread!" he went on, turning his back still more on the others so that, while they could not hear his words, neither should they see the movement of his lips, which movement, on occasions, will sometimes tell as much as words themselves. "A silken thread! What species of cord, of thong is that to hold a strong, reckless man? A thing befitting the place where it is most often found--a lady's boudoir, her bower, the seat in a tower window; a gilded chamber where carpets from Smyrna, skins, rugs, make all soft to the feet; the plaything of a _rêveuse_, a love-lorn dame." "Well?" Emérance whispered, lifting her eyes to the other. "Well?" "But there are other cords," La Truaumont went on. "The heart-strings of women to whom dalliance is unknown: women who will starve, intrigue, follow, dare all for him they love: who will bravely bear the cords, the threads that make them regard the block, the gibbet, as a sweeter thing than bowers and tapestry and silken hangings--so long as block or gibbet are risked with him they love." "Ah!" the woman gasped in an indrawn breath.