"Rather, your will!" he panted.

"Your will, you devil! Nevertheless--" "You will go! Ha! ha! You will go!" For an instant it seemed that he would go.

Stung by the challenge, wrought on by the contempt in which Tavannes held him, he shot a look of hate at the tempter; he caught his breath, and laid his hand on the edge of the shuttering as if he would leap out.
But it goes hard with him who has once turned back from the foe.

The evening light, glancing cold on the burnished pike-points of a group of archers who stood near, caught his eye and went chill to his heart.
Death, not in the arena, not in the sight of shouting thousands, but in this darkening street, with an enemy laughing from the window, death with no revenge to follow, with no certainty that after all she would be safe, such a death could be compassed only by pure love--the love of a child for a parent, of a parent for a child, of a man for the one woman in the world! He recoiled.

"You would not spare her!" he cried, his face damp with sweat--for he knew now that he would not go.