How she came by her knowledge I did not consider. She knew! I had no room for any other thought.
"Oh, you do know!" I implored, and dropping on my knee I seized the hem of her dress to detain her. I felt the dress drag from me; I held it the more firmly. "You do not know—oh, tell me! A man innocent of all wrongdoing, lies in prison—the charge, treason. Think you they will weigh his innocence after this rebellion? The fetters he wears are mine, his punishment is mine, and I must claim it. There's no other way but this plain and simple one. I must needs claim it. Oh think, ever since I have known you, the necessity that I should do this thing has grown on me, day by day, as each day I saw you. I have felt that I owed it to you that I should succeed. Do not you prevent me!"
She stood stock still; I could hear the quick coming and going of her breath, but in the uncertain twilight I could not read her face; and she did not speak.
"Listen!" I continued "If you do not tell me, it will make no difference. I shall still give myself up. But to the other it may make all the difference in the world. For it may be that I shall fail to save him."
Still she kept silence. So, seeing no other way, I stood up before her and told her the story from end to end, beginning with that day when I first rode over Coldbarrow Fell to Blackladies in company with Jervas Rookley, down to the morning when I fled from the garden where the soldiers searched for me.
I saw her head droop as she listened, and bow into her hands; yet I had to go on and finish it.
"But," said she, "you were not all to blame. The woman——"
"Nay," said I, "it can serve no purpose to portion out the blame; for, portion it as you will, you cannot shred away my share."
"Mr. Herbert," she objected again, "would have been taken in your garden, whether you had returned or no that afternoon."
"But my fault was the instrument used to ruin him. He was taken while he followed me. He was taken, too, because of me. For had I not ridden so often into Keswick, he would never have been suspected."