"You are mistaken. I bear my father's name, and I would suffer a hundred deaths rather than see it dragged through the mire."
"Swear it," she cried.
"I swear it. But, hating me as you do, why should you be so sensitive about my good name?"
"Your good name!" she said, scornfully. "It is only because I bear it, because Louis bears it, as well as you, that I exact the pledge from you. Otherwise, do you think I care what becomes of you?"
"Truly," I said, "I believe it would rejoice you to hear the worst."
"It would." %
"I hope to disappoint you. On my solemn word of honor nothing that I do shall ever make our name a theme for scandal or reproach."
"I hold you to that. We shall see whether there is any manhood in you, or the least sense of honor. Now, go!"
"Cannot we part without enmity?" I asked.
Persecuted and wronged as I had been, some touch of sentiment—of which I was not ashamed—moved me to the endeavor to soften the heart of my dead father's wife.