"You persist in not sacrificing your personal feelings to the interest of the country?"
"Not contrary to my convictions, my principles, never!"
Ivas was carried away by his enthusiasm, but was at heart honest and loving. At the threshold of the door strong emotion seized him; he returned and stood near Jacob.
"After all," said he with tears in his eyes, "I esteem you. Let us embrace."
They threw themselves into each other's arms.
As he was on the point of leaving he said in a grave voice:--
"But if to-morrow I receive the order to kill you for your disobedience to the revolutionary committee, I will come with cold blood to stab you. The country above everything."
"Blind heroism, which I respect without sharing. These are frightful times we are living in. How horrible is the regime which inspires hatred, and familiarizes honest souls with crime, and transforms an old friend into an assassin! What will not be the responsibility before God of governments whose tyrannous acts have engendered such despair!"
Ivas, without replying, left him with emotion.
Jacob expected to receive on the morrow his sentence of death, but it did not arrive either that day or later on. Ivas spoke on his friend's behalf, and he was not even declared a traitor to his country. All the revolutionists there understood Ivas, and ceased to have any relations with Jacob, who was considered from that day as a man from whom the revolutionary party had nothing to expect.