Another figure than that of the soldier on guard came out of the shadow, and stood between him and the sentinel.  It was that of Chateauroy; he was mounted on his gray horse and wrapped in his military cloak, about to go the round of the cavalry camp.  Their eyes met in the wavering light like the glow from a furnace-mouth:  in a glance they knew each other.

“It is one of my men,” said the chief carelessly to the sentinel.  “Leave me to deal with him.”

The guard saluted, and resumed his beat.

“Why did you refuse the word, sir?”

“I did not hear.”

There was no reply.

“Why are you absent from your squadron?”

There was no reply still.

“Have you no tongue, sir?  The stick shall soon make you speak!  Why are you here?”

There was again no answer.

Chateauroy’s teeth ground out a furious oath; yet a flash of brutal delight glittered in his eyes.  At last he had hounded down this man, so long out of his reach, into disobedience and contumacy.

“Why are you here, and where have you been?” he demanded once more.

“I will not say.”

The answer, given at length, was tranquil, low, slowly and distinctly uttered, in a deliberate refusal, in a deliberate defiance.

The dark and evil countenance above him grew livid with fury.

“I can have you thrashed like a dog for that answer, and I will.  But first listen here, beau sire!  I know as well as though you had confessed to me.  Your silence cannot shelter your great mistress’ shame.  Ah, ha!  So Mme. la Princesse is so cold to her equals, only to choose her lovers out of my blackguards, and take her midnight intrigues like a camp courtesan!”

Cecil’s face changed terribly as the vile words were spoken.  With the light and rapid spring of a leopard, he reached the side of his commander, one hand on the horse’s mane, the other on the wrists of his chief, that it gripped like an iron vise.

“You lie!  And you know that you lie.  Breathe her name once more, and, by God, as we are both living men, I will have your life for your outrage!”

And, as he spoke, with his left hand he smote the lips that had blasphemed against her.

It was broken asunder at last—­all the long and bitter patience, all the calm and resolute endurance, all the undeviating serenity beneath provocation, which had never yielded through twelve long years, but which had borne with infamy and with tyranny with such absolute submission for sake of those around him, who would revolt at his sign and be slaughtered for his cause.  The promise he had given to endure all things for their sakes—­the sakes of his soldiery, of his comrades—­was at last forgotten.  All he remembered was the vileness that dared touch her name, the shame that through him was breathed on her.  Rank, duty, bondage, consequence, all were forgotten in that one instant of insult that mocked in its odious lie at her purity.  He was no longer the soldier bound in obedience to submit to the indignities that his chief chose to heap on him; he was a gentleman who defended a woman’s honor, a man who avenged a slur on the life that he loved.