"Perhaps you are right," she answered coldly, "perhaps I never did. You have often told me I am very hard-hearted--Victor," she added, after a pause, with a sudden change of manner, and another of those soft fond looks that made such wild work with her victim--"do you think I would ask a man I did not care for to make such a sacrifice? Oh, Victor! you little know a woman's heart--you have cruelly mistaken mine."
The fond eyes filled with tears as she spoke. Victor was doomed. I knew it from that moment. He scarcely made an effort to save himself now.
"And you ask for this as a last proof of my devotion. You are not satisfied yet. It is not enough that I have given you the whole happiness of my life, you must have that life itself as well--nay, even that is too little," he added with bitter emphasis, "I must offer up the unstained honour of the De Rohans in addition to all!"
Another of those speaking, thrilling glances. Oh, the old, old story! Samson and Delilah--Hercules and Omphale--Antony and Cleopatra, on the ruins of an empire--or plain Jack and Gill at the fair. Man's weakness is woman's opportunity, and so the world goes on.
"Victor," she said, "it is for my sake."
The colour mounted in his cheek, and he rose to his feet like a man. The old look I had missed all the evening on his face came back once more, the old look that reminded me of shouting squadrons by the Danube, and a dash to the front with AH Mesrour and brave Iskender Bey. His blood was up, and his lance in rest now, stop him who can!
"So be it," he said, calmly and distinctly, but with his teeth clenched and his nostril dilated, like that of a thorough-bred horse after a gallop. "So be it! and never forget, Rose, in the long dark future, never forget that it was for your sake: and now listen to me. I betray my own and my father's friends, I complete an act of treachery such as is yet unknown in the annals of my country, such as her history shall curse for its baseness till the end of time. I devote to ruin and death a score of the noblest families, a score of the proudest heads in Hungary. I stain my father's shield, I break my own oaths. Life, and honour, and all, I cast away at one throw, and, Rose, it is for your sake!"
She was weeping now--weeping convulsively, with her face buried in her hands; but he heeded it not, and went on--
"All this I am willing to do, Rose, because I love you; but mark the consequence. As surely as I deliver you this list"--he drew a paper from his breast as he spoke--"so surely I proclaim my treachery to the world, so surely I give myself over to the authorities, so surely I march up to the scaffold at the head of that devoted band who were once my friends, and though they think it shame that their blood should soak the same planks as mine, though they turn from me in disgust, even on the verge of another world, so surely will I die amongst them as boldly, as unflinchingly, as the most stainless patriot of them all!"
"No, no," she sobbed out; "never, never; do you think I have no feeling? do you think I have no heart? I have provided for your safety long ago. I have got your free pardon in a written promise, your life and fortune are secure, your share in the discovery will never be made known. Victor, do you think I have not taken care of you?"