A moment later he said, perhaps as though desirous of answering his own suggestion, perhaps of showing his prisoner that he, too, was under no doubt of where Sylvia and her friend--the one a woman the prisoner loved, the other the woman he loved--were.
"Doubtless," he said, "they are not very far. Venloo has fallen," and De Violaine sighed as he told of one more defeat to his country.
"To Marlborough!"
"To the Allies at least. Marlborough draws near. Yet Liége may not fall so easy a prey to him as other of these towns and cities have done. If Tallard returns from the Rhine, if Boufflers but succours us--ah! England cannot win for ever!"
"The time is almost past," Bevill said now, and even as his words fell from him the noble heart of De Violaine, the heart of the man who held this other in his grasp, was full of pity and compassion; "the time is almost past when it matters for me whether Marlborough or Tallard reaches Liége first, whether England or France wins at last. My day is almost done. But to go leaving her behind, unmarried yet widowed, since no other man will ever win the love she gave to me; to leave her to a long life cheerless and blank! Ah! ah!" he murmured, breaking off, "I dare not, must not think of that," while, his manly stoicism giving way, he turned his back on the other so that he should not see his face, and moved towards the deep embrasure of the window.
As he did so De Violaine, observing Bevill's emotion, his poignant grief, stood for a moment looking at him. Then, some feeling stronger than a soldier's duty, a soldier's necessary harshness towards a prisoner, an enemy, one taken as Bevill had been taken, under a false name and bearing false papers, stirred him deeply. They were no longer, he felt, captor and captive, French soldier or English, but man and man. Advancing towards the embrasure, yet hesitating ere he did so, De Violaine placed his hand on Bevill's sleeve.
"Be cheered," he said, impelled to do that which his humanity, in contradistinction to his duty, prompted him towards. "Be cheered. Until either De Boufflers or Tallard comes, the warrant for your--your--for the end--cannot be made. The finding of the Court cannot be carried out. And there is another chance, a hope for you. At Nimeguen the English hold a prisoner of our side who is to suffer for doing that which you have done."
"Ah! if they should spare him."
"If Marlborough has not signed his warrant, and almost I doubt it, seeing that day by day he places a greater distance between him and that city, there is a possibility of an exchange; while until Tallard returns here he cannot sign. No messenger from us can reach him now, since, Heaven help us! an iron ring is round us. Also, it may be, Tallard cannot fight his way here. Even though the worst befalls you, your fate is not yet."
"But still prolonged, still in the balance! Ah! if she were here," Bevill said again.