“Ah, now I see how you hate him,” she cried distractedly. “You would blacken his name even in my memory. How hard and harsh a man you are!”
“It is right you should know the truth.”
“I do not seek to know it. Spare me. I cannot bear the suspense. My very courage to die may be killed by delay; already I can feel it waning. A week of suspense and I should be coward enough even to wish to live.”
“You shall know the truth. I will find it out; and when his rank unworthiness is proved to you, you will see the folly and madness of this last wild resolve. You will live to thank me yet, Gabrielle.”
“Oh, why did I speak it, fool and coward that I am!” she cried, despairingly.
“It is well you did,” he answered; and with this he left her.
CHAPTER XVIII
IN THE “TIGER’S DEN”
WHILE all these plans were being hurried forward for his release, Gerard took his imprisonment very philosophically. There was but one circumstance which caused him uneasiness—the doubt whether Dubois could have had time before he was placed under arrest to pass on the instructions he had given him.
But he had no serious fear. If Dubois had been able to set things in motion there would soon be some effort on foot to secure his liberty; while if not, the worst could only be that he himself would be driven to announce his real rank to the Governor.
He was indeed more than half disposed to regret having maintained silence at the moment of arrest. He had measured the lengths to which the Governor was prepared to go; and the brutal command to cut him down if he resisted was one not to be forgotten. That and the indignity to which he, Bourbon’s son, had been subjected by this tyrant should be paid for heavily.