“You are you!” she said proudly. “But I will point out that aspect to the Comte—for he has suffered, Gaston. . . . But, my darling, there is something else I want to ask you.” She paused a moment. “If you will not let me beg your life, and I”—she faltered a little—“I accept your wishes . . . what is to happen if the plan for to-morrow fails? Will Bonaparte keep you in prison for years, perhaps?”
And the human spirit has such strange recesses that it really seemed to her that by throwing out this suggestion in words she could make it real, avoid a worse. For at Vannes they had told her——
Gaston de Trélan went suddenly over to the stove, and held out his hands for a moment to its warmth. His back was towards her. Then, sitting down beside her on the bed again, he said lightly, “He is not likely to have the chance of doing that—unless he captures me a second time.”
She saw that he was evading her. “Yes,” she broke in, seizing his arm, “I know; we have spoken about that. But the best plans sometimes fail. What then? Gaston, as you love me . . . Gaston, answer me!”
He looked down at the little hand gripping his arm, and after a moment put his other hand over it. “My wife, can you not see that the First Consul, a soldier himself, would not incur the odium of an almost unparalleled piece of military treachery unless it were worth his while? . . . My dear, there is no braver woman than you. I do you the honour, therefore, of telling you the truth. No, he will not keep me in prison. If I am not rescued I shall undoubtedly be shot . . . as an—example.”
She was answered. Her hand relaxed upon his arm, and he hastily slipped the arm itself about her as she fell away from him. But Valentine pulled herself still further away.
“Then I am going to disregard your wishes, Gaston! You do not know what you are saying. I give you fair warning. I am going to Mme Bonaparte—to the First Consul himself! You expect me to stand by and see you murdered when I might save you! What is your pride—which you cannot deny—against your life . . . and Gaston, Gaston, against my love for you, which you treat so lightly!”
He slipped to his knees and caught her hands to his breast. “O, my more than dear, do not say that!” he implored. “Is not your love for me all the light I have in the world? But at this hour there is something that calls more insistently even than love—something that, if it has to do with pride, is not linked with personal pride. I mean—honour. And you could not gain me my life if you asked—I am sure of it—yet if you were to make the attempt——”
But Valentine broke in with desperate logic. “You cannot know that I should fail! How could you? You cannot be sure till it has been tried. And I shall try! Then you can talk of failure!”
Gaston knelt there as pale as she. Surely, surely, he could find some way to stay her without revealing the cruel knowledge he had—that only he himself could ever be successful in an entreaty which even she could not move him to make.