“It is your own fault.  You never sent her a line for all these years.”

“Why, how could I?”

“Well, sir, the information you did not supply others did.  We know that you were seen in a Spanish village drinking between two guerillas.”

“That is true,” said Camille.

“An honest French soldier fired at you.  Why, he told us so himself.”

“He told you true,” said Camille, sullenly.  “The bullet grazed my hand; see, here is the mark.  Look!” She did look, and gave a little scream; but recovering herself, said she wished it had gone through his heart.  “Why prolong this painful interview?” said she; “the soldier told us all.”

“I doubt that,” said Camille.  “Did he tell you that under the table I was chained tight down to the chair I sat in?  Did he tell you that my hand was fastened to a drinking-horn, and my elbow to the table, and two fellows sitting opposite me with pistols quietly covering me, ready to draw the trigger if I should utter a cry?  Did he tell you that I would have uttered that cry and died at that table but for one thing, I had promised her to live?”

“Not he; he told me nothing so incredible.  Besides, what became of you all these years?  You are a double traitor, to your country and to her.”

Camille literally gasped for breath.  “You are a most cruel young lady to insult me so,” said he, and scalding tears forced themselves from his eyes.

Rose eyed him with merciless scorn.

He fought manfully against this weakness, with which his wound and his fatigue had something to do, as well as Rose’s bitter words; and after a gallant struggle he returned her her haughty stare, and addressed her thus:  “Mademoiselle, I feel myself blush, but it is for you I blush, not for myself.  This is what became of me.  I went out alone to explore; I fell into an ambuscade; I shot one of the enemy, and pinked another, but my arm being broken by a bullet, and my horse killed under me, the rascals got me.  They took me about, tried to make a decoy of me as I have told you, and ended by throwing me into a dungeon.  They loaded me with chains, too, though the walls were ten feet thick, and the door iron, and bolted and double-bolted outside.  And there for months and years, in spite of wounds, hunger, thirst, and all the tortures those cowards made me suffer, I lived, because, Rose, I had promised some one at that gate there (and he turned suddenly and pointed to it) that I would come back alive.  At last, one night, my jailer came to my cell drunk.  I seized him by the throat and throttled him till he was insensible; his keys unlocked my fetters, and locked him in the cell, and I got safely outside.  But there a sentinel saw me, and fired at me.  He missed me but ran after me, and caught me.  You see I was stiff, confined so long.  He gave me a thrust of his bayonet; I flung my heavy keys fiercely in his face; he staggered; I wrested his piece from him, and disabled him.”