"Yes, thanks, thanks for saying that to me, Angela," the count said as he pressed her in his arms with passionate energy; "you restore me all my energy."
"And now farewell, count, to meet again soon."
The count went up to Valentine.
"Your hand, brother," he said to him. "Forgive me for not desiring to live."
The hunter threw himself into his brother's arms, and the two remained thus enfolded for several minutes. At length the count liberated himself from this loving prison by a heroic effort. Valentine left the cell, not having the strength to utter a word, and supporting Doña Angela, who, in spite of the courage she had displayed, felt on the point of fainting.
The door closed again, and the count remained alone. He fell back in his chair, leaned his elbows on the table, buried his face in his hands, and remained in this position the whole night through. The next morning, at an early hour, Don Louis was fetched to go to the court. The interrogatory was over, and the pleading was about to begin.
The count had chosen as his defender a young captain of the name of Borunda, who during the siege of Hermosillo had been taken prisoner by the French at the attack on the bridge head. Borunda had remembered the generous manner in which the count had treated him at that period. His pleading was what might be expected from the young and noble officer, simple, pathetic, and imprinted with that eloquence which comes from the heart, and nothing can equal. Assuredly the count would have been acquitted, had not his death been decided beforehand.
Don Louis, who during the entire discussion remained calm and apathetic, listening to the false statements and calumnious imputations of the witnesses without quivering, or addressing a reproach to those ingrates who sacrificed him in this cowardly way, felt affected by his defender's glowing language. He rose and held out his hand to him with inimitable grace.
"Thank you, sir," he said to him. "I am happy at having found a man like yourself among so many enemies. Your pleading was as it should be, and money will not repay such words."
Then, drawing from his finger the ring bearing his coat of arms, which he had always worn since leaving France, he passed it on to the captain's finger, adding,—