"I was rough. But I am too foolish fond to hold anger. It has worn me out to be hard on thee. I am not the man I was."
Marguerite clung around him. He dumbly felt his misfortune in being thralled by a nature of greater moral crudity than his own. But she was his portion in the world.
"You flung me against the cannon because I wanted you made a seignior."
"It was because D'Aulnay wanted me made a traitor."
"What is there to do, indeed?" murmured Marguerite. "He said if you would take the sentinels off the wall on the entrance side of the fort, at daybreak any morning, he will be ready to scale that wall."
"But how will he know I have taken the sentinels off?"
"You must hold up a ladder in your hands."
"The tower is between that side of the fort and D'Aulnay's camp. No one would see me standing with a ladder in my hands."
"When you set the ladder against the outside wall, it is all you have to do, except to take me with you as you climb down. It is their affair to see the signal."
"So D'Aulnay plans an ambush between us and the river? And suppose I did all that and the enemy failed to see the signal? I should go down there to be hung, or my lady would have me thrown into the keep here, and perhaps shot. I ought to be shot."