You exaggerate, I am assured.

You could do nothing dishonourable, nothing vile." "Child," I cried, "I thank God that you are right! I cannot do what is dishonourable, and I will not, for all that a month ago I pledged myself to do it!" A sudden horror, a doubt, a suspicion flashed into her glance.
"You--you do not mean that you are a spy ?" she asked; and from my heart a prayer of thanks went up to Heaven that this at least it was mine frankly to deny.
"No, no--not that.

I am no spy." Her face cleared again, and she sighed.
"It is, I think, the only thing I could not forgive.

Since it is not that, will you not tell me what it is ?" For a moment the temptation to confess, to tell her everything, was again upon me.

But the futility of it appalled me.
"Don't ask me," I besought her; "you will learn it soon enough." For I was confident that once my wager was paid, the news of it and of the ruin of Bardelys would spread across the face of France like a ripple over water.