"No; I am dismissed."
The Baron's lips twitched, but he could bring himself now to speak the word which was fraught with such profound humiliation.
"Dismissed!" repeated Gabrielle, "without your seeking it? Why, that is----"
"An insult," concluded Raven, as she hesitated. "Or a condemnation, as you like to take it. It is usual, if only for appearance's sake, to allow a fallen man the faculty of retiring; but even this favour has been denied me."
"And what will you do now?" asked Gabrielle, after a pause.
"Nothing," replied the Baron, coldly. "My public career is at an end. I shall go to one of my estates in the country, and there--live on."
"Will that be possible to you, Arno? You once told me that to work and to rule were as the necessary conditions of your being, that you could not endure an aimless existence, the monotonous round of an every-day life."
"I shall learn to endure them perhaps. One has so much to learn in this world. At all events, I must try."
"And I shall go with you," whispered Gabrielle, with the fervour of a great love. "I shall stay with you, always and always."
"Yes, always."