He who had spared her life at a price now took his own a gift at her hands, and bore it.
"_Afterwards, Madame de Tavannes_--" His mind went back by some chance to those words--the words he had neither meant nor fulfilled.

It passed from them to the marriage and the blow; to the scene in the meadow beside the river; to the last ride between La Fleche and Angers--the ride during which he had played with her fears and hugged himself on the figure he would make on the morrow.
The figure?
Alas! of all his plans for dazzling her had come--_this_! Angers had defeated him, a priest had worsted him.

In place of releasing Tignonville after the fashion of Bayard and the Paladins, and in the teeth of snarling thousands, he had come near to releasing him after another fashion and at his own expense.

Instead of dazzling her by his mastery and winning her by his magnanimity, he lay here, owing her his life, and so weak, so broken, that the tears of childhood welled up in his eyes.
Out of the darkness a hand, cool and firm, slid into his, clasped it tightly, drew it to warm lips, carried it to a woman's bosom.
"My lord," she murmured, "I was the captive of your sword, and you spared me.

Him I loved you took and spared him too--not once or twice.