"Frank, madame. How so? How frank?"
"Ah, monsieur, do not let us trifle further. Each of us has an object in entering that city. Yours I can partly divine, as I think; but mine I doubt your ever divining. Yet--yet--I know what you are, and I would that you should know who and what I am. If--if it pleases you, can we not confide in each other?"
Bevill bowed over his horse's mane as the Comtesse said these words; then, in a low tone, he replied:
"Any confidence madame may honour me with shall be deeply respected. Meanwhile, I have perceived that madame knows or suspects that I am not what I seem to be. So be it. I am in her hands and I do not fear. Let her tell me what she believes me to be and, if she has judged aright, I will answer truly. A frank admission can harm me no more than suspicion can do."
"I shall not harm you," the Comtesse said. "I have not forgotten your succour when those boors had attacked me." Then, glancing round to observe whether the servants were out of earshot, as was, indeed, the case, since they had gone some little distance ahead of the coach the better to gaze upon the troops environing the city, as well as on the city itself, she said:
"You are, as I have said, an Englishman."
"Yes," Bevill replied calmly, fearing nothing from this avowal which, made to any other French subject, would have been fraught with destruction to him. "I am an Englishman."
"Liége was before them."--p. 363.
"A soldier, doubtless, endeavouring to make his way to his own forces."