"And yet," said Elizabeth, after a moment's mournful reflection, " if I obey my presentiments, your news will make no difference to our plans for departure."
"Nay, mother," said Andre firmly, "you would not force me to quit the country to the detriment of my honour . If I have made you feel some of the bitterness and sorrow that have spoiled my own young days because of my cowardly--enemies, it is not from a poor spirit, but because I was powerless, and knew it, to take any sort of striking vengeance for their secret insults, their crafty injuries, their underhand intrigues. It was not because my arm wanted strength, but because my head wanted a crown. I might have put an end to some of these wretched beings, the least dangerous maybe; but it would have been striking in the dark; the ring
