"HER FATHER'S MURDERER."

"I have not yet decided," Baville said that night to Beauplan as they sat together in the new citadel, "when the sentence will be carried out. Have my doubts as to whether I shall not release him."

"Release him!" the other echoed. "Release him! Such a thing is unheard of. He, an Englishman, a consorter with the Camisards, a man under the ban of Versailles! Surely you would not dare----"

"Dare!" exclaimed Baville, though very quietly, "dare! Monsieur Beauplan, you forget yourself. Since I have ruled in Languedoc no man has dared to use that word to me before."

"Yet," said the judge, a member of an ancient family in the south, who had always rebelled against the authority of this stranger to the customs, as well as the noblesse, of Languedoc, "though none here may question your authority, there are those in the capital who can do so."

"There are. But you are not of the number. Monsieur Beauplan, I have nothing more to say. I wish you a good-night."

"I understand," Beauplan replied, "understand very well. And your conduct is natural; also natural that there should be an exchange of prisoners, that your child's release should depend upon his. Yet beware, Monsieur l'Intendant! I was at Versailles two months ago, as you know, and--and--they said----" and he hesitated a moment while a slight smile came into his face.

"What did they say?"

"That not only might a substitute he sent in place of Montrevel, but of----"

"Baville! Is that it?"

"It is that."

"The substitute to be, perhaps, Amédée Beauplan."

"Nay, that is impossible, as you are aware. In Languedoc none can rule as Intendant who are of the province. Yet I warn you, if you set free this man even in the desire to obtain the freedom of Urbaine Ducaire, neither Chamillart nor Madame de Maintenon will forgive."

"You mean well, doubtless," Baville replied, "yet I shall act as I see best. Beauplan, you have children of your own, also a high post. If the life of one of your girls were balanced against that post, which should you prefer to protect?"

To this the judge made no answer, leaving the Intendant alone a moment afterward. Yet, as he sought his own great sumptuous coach, he acknowledged that, much as he detested Baville, what he was undoubtedly about to do was natural.

Left alone, the other took from his pocket a paper and glanced at it as, before the judge had appeared in his room, he had glanced at it a dozen times--a paper on which were written only a few words. They ran:

"Urbaine Ducaire will be restored unharmed to none other than the Englishman sentenced to death to-day. If he dies she dies too. Nothing can save her, even though she is a Huguenot. Decide, therefore, and decide quickly." And it was signed "Jean Cavalier."

"So," he mused, "he was in the Court to-day, or sent this message by one of his followers, knowing well what the sentence would be. Yet the decision was made ere this paper was smuggled in here, God knows how! It needed not this to determine me."

He struck upon the bell by his side as he thus reflected, and, on the servant appearing in answer to it, he asked:

"How came this paper here which I found upon my table?" and he touched with his finger the letter from Cavalier.

"It was left, monsieur, by a woman."

"A woman! Of what description?"

"Old, monsieur, gray and worn. She said, monsieur, that it was of the first importance. A matter of life and death."

Again, as the lackey spoke, there came that feeling to the other's heart of icy coldness, the feeling of utter despair which had seized upon him earlier, as he saw her face in Court. For he never doubted that the bearer of the missive was the same woman who appeared as a spectre before him at the trial--the woman who could tell Urbaine all.

"Where have they disposed the man who was tried and sentenced to-day?" he asked next.

"In the same room he has occupied since he was brought here, monsieur."

"So! Let him be brought to this room. I have to speak with him."

"Here, monsieur!" the man exclaimed with an air of astonishment which he could not repress.

"Here."

Ten minutes later and Martin was before him, he having been conducted from the wing of the citadel in which he was confined to the adjacent one in which Baville's set of apartments were.

His escort consisted of two warders who were of the milice; nor was there any need that he should have more to guard him, for his hands were manacled with great steel gyves, the lower ends of which were attached by ring bolts to his legs above his knees. Yet, since they could have had no idea that there was any possibility of one so fettered as he escaping from their custody, the careful manner in which these men stood by their prisoner could have been but assumed with a view to finding favour with the ruler of the province.

As Martin confronted the other, their eyes met in one swift glance; then Baville's were quickly lowered. Before that man, the man whom Urbaine loved, the man who had saved her life, who could restore her once more to his arms--if, knowing what she might know, she would ever return to them--the all-powerful Intendant felt himself abased.

"Who," he said, addressing the warders, "has the key of those irons?"

"I, monsieur," one answered.

"Remove them."

"Monsieur!"

"Do as I bid you."

With a glance at his comrade (the fellow said afterward that the Intendant had gone mad) the one thus addressed did as he was ordered. A moment later and Martin and Baville were alone, the warders dismissed with a curt word, and hurrying off to tell their mates and comrades that the rebellion must be over since the trial of the morning could have been but a farce.

Then Baville rose and, standing before Martin, said:

"You see, I keep my promise. You are free."

"Free! To do what? Rejoin Urbaine?"

"Ay, to rejoin Urbaine. For that alone, upon one stipulation."

"What is the stipulation?"

"That--that--she and I meet again!"

"Meet again! Why not?"

Instead of replying to this question Baville asked Martin another.

"Was," he demanded, speaking swiftly, "Cavalier in Court to-day, dressed in a russet suit, disguised in a long black wig?"

"Yes," the other replied, "he was there."

"And the woman with him, old, gray-haired, is sh............