The Commandant leaned forth and blew his whistle.  The bird’s song ceased, and was followed by the tramp of men.  My brain worked so clearly, I could almost count their footsteps.  I saw them, across the Commandant’s shoulder, as they filed past the corner of the window and, having formed into platoon, grounded arms, the butts of their muskets thudding softly on the turf—­a score of men in blue-and-white uniforms, spick and span in the clear morning light.

I counted them and drew a long breath.  “Master priest,” said I, and held out my hand to the Princess, “in your Church, I believe, matrimony is a sacrament.  If you are ready, I am ready.”

His loose lip twitched as he stepped forward. . . .  When he paused in his muttering I lifted the Princess’s cold hand and drew a seal from my pocket—­a heavy seal with a ring attached, which I fitted on her finger; and so I held her hand, letting drop on it by degrees the weight of the heavy seal.

From the first she had offered no resistance, made no protest.  I pressed the seal into the palm of her hand, not telling her that it was her own father’s great seal of Corsica.  But I folded her fingers back on it, reverently touched the one encircled by the ring, and said I—­

“It is the best I can give;” and a little later, “It is all I brought in my pockets but this handkerchief.  Take that, too; lead me out; and bandage my eyes, my wife.”

She took my arm obediently and we stepped out by the doorway, bridegroom and bride, in face of the soldiery.  A sergeant saluted and came forward for the Commandant’s orders.

“A moment, sir,” said I, and, laying two fingers on the Commandant’s arm, I nodded towards the bole of a stout pine-tree across the clearing.  “Will that distance suit you?”

He nodded in reply and as I swung on my heel touched my arm in his turn.

“You will do me the honour, sir, to shake hands?”

“Most willingly, sir.”  I shook hands with him, casting, as I did so, a glance over my shoulder at the Prince and Father Domenico, who hung back in the doorway—­two men afraid.  “Come,” said I to the Princess, and, as she seemed to hesitate, “Come, my wife,” I commanded, and walked to the pine-tree, she following.  I held out the handkerchief.  She took it, still obediently, and as she took it I clasped her hand and lifted it to my lips.

“Nay,” said I, challenging, “what was it you told your brother?  A moment?  A pang?  What are they to weigh against a lifetime of dishonour?”

I saw her blench:  yet even while she bandaged me at my bidding, I did not arrive at understanding the folly—­the cruel folly of that speech.  Nay, even when, having bandaged me, she stepped away and left me, I considered not nor surmised what second meaning might be read in it.