"And that she will be tried to-morrow?"
"They never keep a prisoner pining too long," replied Déroulède bitterly. "I guessed that too."
"What do you mean to do?"
"Defend her with the last breath in my body."
"You love her still, then?" asked Blakeney, with a smile.
"Still?" The look, the accent, the agony of a hopeless passion conveyed in that one word, told Sir Percy Blakeney all that he wished to know.
"Yet she betrayed you," he said tentatively.
"And to atone for that sin—an oath, mind you, friend, sworn to her father—she is already to give her life for me."
"And you are prepared to forgive?"
"To understand is to forgive," rejoined Déroulède simply, "and I love her."