"I fought for no woman, but for my friend."
She laughed; surely the hardest, most biting laugh that ever man heard.
"Tell me your fine story now."
I sank down on the settle, feeling strangely helpless in the face of her contempt.
"This is the priest's doing," I repeated, more to myself than to her.
"It is my doing," she said again; "my doing from first to last"
"Then what was it?" I asked, with a dull, involuntary curiosity. "What was it you had neither the weakness to yield to nor the strength to resist?"
She did not answer me, but it seemed as though she suddenly put out a hand and steadied herself against the wall.
"Tell me your story," she said briefly; and sitting there in the darkness, unable to see my mistress, I began the history of that November night.
"It is true that I killed Count Lukstein; but I killed him in open encounter. I fought him fairly and honourably."