“Kindly take Mademoiselle to her apartments, Brissac,” he said at last. “She will not care to witness what is to follow.”
So the moment had come!
“Adieu, Mademoiselle,” I said as calmly as I could. “It is to be adieu this time, it seems. You have done what you could to save me, and I shall die quite happy, knowing that you care. Only,” I added, with a smile I could not make wholly tearless, “it would have been good to live, knowing it—for I love you, Mademoiselle. Pardon my saying it here, before these others—but I must say it—I want you to think of me always as loving you.”
Her lips were trembling and her eyes bright with tears. God! To live—life would be worth something now!
“M. le Duc,” she asked at last, in a choking voice, “is there no price which will prevent this murder?”
He looked from her to me and back again. I saw hot desire leap to life in his eyes as he gazed at her—her face, her arms, the poise of her figure!
“Only one, Mademoiselle,” he answered very quietly.
“And what is that, Monsieur?”
Again he looked at her, dwelling on her beauty, her girlishness, her innocence.
“That is yourself, Mademoiselle.”