"And a demmed, beastly place it is too, but at least we can talk quietly there." Deroulede, roused from his meditation, looked up, to see his friend, Sir Percy Blakeney, standing close beside him.

Tall, debonnair, well-dressed, he seemed by his very presence to dissipate the morbid atmosphere which was beginning to weigh upon Deroulede's active mind.
Deroulede followed him readily enough through, the intricate mazes of old Paris, and down the Rue des Arts, until Sir Percy stopped outside a small hostelry, the door of which stood wide open.
"Mine host has nothing to lose from footpads and thieves," explained the Englishman as he guided his friend through the narrow doorway, then up a flight of rickety stairs, to a small room on the floor above.

"He leaves all doors open for anyone to walk in, but, la! the interior of the house looks so uninviting that no one is tempted to enter." "I wonder you care to stay here," remarked Deroulede, with a momentary smile, as he contrasted in his mind the fastidious appearance of his friend with the dinginess and dirt of these surroundings.
Sir Percy deposited his large person in the capacious depths of a creaky chair, stretched his long limbs out before him, and said quietly: "I am only staying in this demmed hole until the moment when I can drag you out of this murderous city." Deroulede shook his head.
"You'd best go back to England, then," he said, "for I'll never leave Paris now." "Not without Juliette Marny, shall we say ?" rejoined Sir Percy placidly.
"And I fear me that she has placed herself beyond our reach," said Deroulede sombrely.
"You know that she is in the Luxembourg Prison ?" queried the Englishman suddenly.
"I guessed it, but could find no proof." "And that she will be tried to-morrow ?" "They never keep a prisoner pining too long," replied Deroulede bitterly.

"I guessed that too." "What do you mean to do ?" "Defend her with the last breath in my body." "You love her still, then ?" asked Blakeney, with a smile.
"Still ?" The look, the accent, the agony of a hopeless passion conveyed in that one word, told Sir Percy Blakeney all that he wished to know.
"Yet she betrayed you," he said tentatively.
"And to atone for that sin--an oath, mind you, friend, sworn to her father--she is already to give her life for me." "And you are prepared to forgive ?" "To understand _is_ to forgive," rejoined Deroulede simply, "and I love her." "Your madonna!" said Blakeney, with a gently ironical smile.
"No; the woman I love, with all her weaknesses, all her sins; the woman to gain whom I would give my soul, to save whom I will give my life." "And she ?" "She does not love me--would she have betrayed me else ?" He sat beside the table, and buried his head in his hands.

Not even his dearest friend should see how much he had suffered, how deeply his love had been wounded.
Sir Percy said nothing, a curious, pleasant smile lurked round the corners of his mobile mouth.