"This you do for the love you bear to the man whom you give up to me?"
"For what else?" cried Claire, the tears starting in her eyes. "Surely an honest girl may love a man? She may be ready even to give her life for him. But—she will not hold him against his will!"
"Then you will come with me to my father, the King of Spain?" Valentine persisted. "Perhaps—I do not know—he will pardon Jean d'Albret at our request—perhaps he will send us, all three, to the fires of the Inquisition. That also I do not know!"
"And I do not care!" cried Claire; "I will come!"
"For his sake alone?" queried Valentine, resolved to test the girl to the uttermost.
"For whose else?" cried Claire at last, exasperated; "not for yours, I suppose! Nor yet for mine own! I have been searched for by your Inquisition bloodhounds before now. He saved me from that!"
"And I—all of you!" said Valentine la Niña to herself. "But the price is somewhat heavy!"
Nevertheless, she had found Claire worthy.