The Trampling of the Lilies Part 36

"Do not use that word, Monsieur," she cried, with a shudder. "My action cannot be ranked among betrayals. He would have let you go to the guillotine in his stead. He had not the virtue to come forward, for all that he knew that you must die if he did not. On the contrary, such a condition of things afforded him amus.e.m.e.nt, matter to scorn and insult you with. He would have complacently allowed a dozen men to have gone to the guillotine that his own worthless life might have been spared.

"But he was your betrothed!" La Boulaye protested.

"True!" she made answer; "but I had to choose between the man it had been arranged I should marry and the man I loved." A flush crimsoned her cheek, and her voice sank almost to a whisper. "And to save the man I love I have delivered up Ombreval."

"Suzanne"

The name burst from his lips in a shout of wonder and of joy ineffable.

In a stride he seemed to cover the distance between them, and he caught her to him as the door slammed on the discreetly departing Robespierre.