"I would not stay where my company was suffered rather than prized," said she.
"So you were for trying fortune alone?"
"Better that than with an unwilling defender," said she.
"Behold your injustice!" I cried. "For, rather than lose you, I have faced all, even drowning!" And I laughed.
Her eyes were fixed on my face, but she did not speak. I believe she feared to ask me the question that was in her dark eyes. But at last she murmured:
"Why do you speak of tricks? Simon, why do you laugh?"
"Why, since by a trick you left me—indeed I cannot believe it was no trick."
"I swear it was no trick!"
"I warrant it was. And thus by a trick I have contrived to thwart it."
"By a trick?"