“Oh, then, who can tell?  Did he not pray that he might not be led into temptation?”

“Yes,” Victor replied, more troubled than scornful,—­“yes, and allowed himself to be led at last.”

“But if you should go away”——­

“Would not that be flying from danger?” he asked, proudly.

“Nay, might it not be doing with your might what you found to do, that you might not be led into temptation?”

“And you are afraid, that, if I stay here, I shall yield to them.”

“You say you are not certain, Victor.  You repeat Mazurier’s words.”

“Yet shall I remain.  No, I will never run away.”

The pride of the young fellow, and the consternation occasioned by the recreancy of his superior, his belief in the doctrines he had confessed with Mazurier, and the time-serving of the latter, had evidently thrown asunder the guards of his peace, and produced a sad state of confusion.

“It were better to run away,” said Jacqueline, not pausing to choose the word,—­“far better than to stay and defy the Devil, and then find that you could not resist him, Victor.  Oh, if we could go, as Elsie said, back to Domremy,—­anywhere away from this cruel Meaux!”

“Have you, then, gained nothing, Jacqueline?”

“Everything.  But to lose it,—­oh, I cannot afford that!”

“Let us stand together, then.  Promise me, Jacqueline,” he exclaimed, eagerly, as though he felt himself among defences here, with her.

“What shall I promise, Victor?” she asked, with the voice and the look of one who is ready for any deed of daring, for any work of love.

“I, too, have preached this word.”

Her only comment was, “I know you preached it well.”

“What has befallen others may befall me.”

“Well.”

So strongly, so confidently did she speak this word, that the young man went on, manifestly influenced by it, hesitating no more in his speech.

“May befall me,” he repeated.

“‘Whosoever believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live,’” she answered, with lofty voice, repeating the divine word.  “What is our life, that we should hold it at the expense of his Truth?  Mazurier was wrong.  He can never atone for the wrong he has done.”

“I believe it!” exclaimed Victor, with a brightening countenance.  The clouds of doubt rose from his face and floated away, as we see the mists ascending from the heights, when we are so happy as to live in the wild hill-country.  “You prize Truth more than life.  Stand with me in this, Jacqueline.  Speak of this Truth as it has come to me.  You are all that I have left.  I have lost Mazurier.  Jacqueline, you are a woman, but you never,—­yes! yes! though I dare not say as much of myself, I dare say it of you,—­you never could have bought your liberty at such a price as Martial has paid.  I know not how, even with the opportunity, he will ever gain the courage to speak of these things again,—­those great mysteries which are hidden from the eyes of the covetous and worldly and unbelieving.  Promise, stand with me, Jacqueline, and I will rely on you.  Forsake me not.”