“Friends with you! Surely that is impossible. You cannot wish it yourself, after what has happened. You seem to forget.”
“Lady, Carna—I used to call you Carna when you were a child—I do try to forget that dreadful [pg 277]night. I was overborne by those double-dyed villains, Carausius and Ambiorix. Believe me, it was against my will that I took any part in that dreadful business. And you will remember I never lifted a hand against you, no, nor against that base champion of yours. You will do me that justice. Carausius, thank Heaven! has got his deserts, and I have broken with Ambiorix.”
Carna and Martianus.
Carna remained silent.
Martianus resolved to try another appeal, and, presuming that the girl’s recollections of the scene might be confused by fear, did not scruple to depart considerably from the truth.
“I implore you to believe that I could not have allowed that horrible deed to be accomplished. If that base fellow who had the privilege of saving you had not appeared, I was ready myself to interfere. I know that I ought to have done so before; it has been a ceaseless regret to me that I did not. But I wanted to keep on terms with those two, and I held back till the last moment. Forgive me my irresolution, Carna, but do not believe that I could have been one of the murderers.”
The girl’s recollections of the scene, which were quite free from the confusion which Martianus had imagined, did not agree with this account of his behaviour, but she did not think it worth while to argue the point.
“Let it be as you will,” she said, with a cold dignity, “but you can imagine that these recollections are not pleasing to me. And now I will bid you farewell.”