"Yes--instead?"
"I seek to save a life, a guiltless one." Then, rising from her chair and advancing close to De Violaine, she said, "You can preserve this Englishman. If," and she wrestled with herself, strung herself masterfully to utter the words, "if you ever loved me, if in your heart there still dwells the memory of that dead and gone love, I beseech you to save him. He is innocent of aught against France."
"The memory of that love is there, never to be effaced; but for what you ask--it is impossible."
"Oh! oh! And this is the man who vowed to give his life to me!" the Comtesse murmured. "The man who is supreme here, in Liége, yet will not do that!"
"My life is yours, now as it has ever been--to do with as you will--instantly--to-day, at once. But you demand more of me; you ask that which I cannot give--my honour! You have said that he who fears not death fears nothing. Alas! you--you--Radegonde de Montigny, as once you were when first I knew and--Heaven help me!--loved you; you, Radegonde de Valorme as you now are, should know that death is little beside honour: and I, before all, am a soldier."
"You will do nothing?"
"I can do nothing."
Madame de Valorme sank into the chair she had quitted a moment ago, and sat there, no longer gazing at him, but, instead, at the ground. Then, suddenly, she looked up at De Violaine, and he saw so strange a light in her eyes that he was filled with wonderment at what the meaning might be--filled with wonderment, though, as she spoke again, he understood, or thought he understood; for now, though using almost the same words she had but just uttered, they were uttered in so different a tone that he deemed understanding had come to him.
"In no case will you do anything?"
"In no case," he answered in a tone so sad that it wrung her heart. "Whatever may be, can be, done, cannot be done by me."