"Bah!" he snarled in a splutter; "be silent, girl!" Then, with a sudden shift to a mocking smoothness, he went on in the same breath: "Oh! we ask your pardon! Give us time to think, Mademoiselle de Narbonne. Narbonne? ho! ho! Narbonne? Narbonne? Come nearer, d'Argenton," and sinking back on his pillows with a moan he beckoned to Monseigneur. "Narbonne? What Narbonne?"
"Cousin twice or thrice removed to Jean de Foix, Sire, and guardian to the young Gaston."
"By God! d'Argenton, we win in the end!" he broke out, shaking his finger at me. "Cousin to Jean de Foix? That girl stands for Navarre, and we'll wring—wring our rights out of her!"
"Oh, Sire!" cried Monseigneur, "your promise, your promise!"
"Your oath!" said a deeper voice, and Francis of Paulo laid his hands fearlessly on the meagre shoulder nearest him. "Dare you forswear yourself—dare you lie in the very ear of God, and the grave open at the bed's edge?"
Round upon him turned Louis, striking upward feebly like an angry cat.
"No oath!" he cried shrilly, his yellow face suffused by excited rage. "I swore no oath, I only said—only said—said——" His voice died away in a quaver as his eyes met those of the white-haired monk set in unshrinking sternness. "I submit, Father, I submit. Heaven is too strong for me, poor weak wretch that I am. But, pray God, heaven is worth a province. It is a long price to pay for a man's soul. But what we must not wring we may win by consent, a consent free from all pressure of compulsion? For that I must—I must think. Mademoiselle de Narbonne, your pleading has moved my pity, as you see, moved it greatly. From my heart I grieve for your sorrow. If—mark, for to-day I say no more than if—if Justice allows mercy—it is France who is offended, not I—would you wish to be the one to carry Monsieur de Helville's pardon to Poictiers?"
"If I might, Sire," I answered, my heart beating so fast that I could hardly draw breath.
"And if—not? If France can find no excuse, what then? Would you still wish to say—farewell?"
"Farewell? Not that, not that; give me his life, Sire, give me his life, and in return everything that service, everything that devotion can do——"