"But my brother and I--we always had very different ideas about
you, Mr. Armitage. We hold briefs for different sides of the case."
"Oh, I'm a case, am I?" and he caught gladly at the suggestion of
lightness in her tone. "But I'd really like to know what he has to do
with my affairs."
"Then you will have to ask him."
"To be sure. But the government can hardly have assigned Captain
Claiborne to special duty at Monsieur Chauvenet's request. I swear to you
that I'm as much in the dark as you are."
"I'm quite sure an officer of the line would not be taken from his duties
and sent into the country on any frivolous errand. But perhaps an
Ambassador from a great power made the request,--perhaps, for example,
it was Baron von Marhof."
"Good Lord!"
Armitage laughed aloud.
"I beg your pardon! I really beg your pardon! But is the Ambassador
looking for me?"
"I don't know, Mr. Armitage. You forget that I'm only a traitor and not a
spy."
"You are the noblest woman in the world," he said boldly, and his heart
leaped in him and he spoke on with a fierce haste. "You have made
sacrifices for me that no woman ever made before for a man--for a man she
did not know! And my life--whatever it is worth, every hour and second of
it, I lay down before you, and it is yours to keep or throw away.
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