"But"—she still looked down on him wondering—"but you told me just now that the Lord Proprietor was a just man?"
"I have not looked at the rights and wrongs of the case," he said hastily, conscious that he was incurring her scorn. "The Lord Proprietor may have much to say on his side."
"You have not inquired, then?"
"The news came to me only this morning, quite by chance."
"By chance?" she caught him up, and, springing off the wall, stood on the firm turf facing him. "But you are, or were, Governor of the Islands."
Again he bent his head. "I have told you that I no longer serve the Council even. The Lord Proprietor does not consult me."
Vashti gazed around her, on the broken roof of the ammunition shed, the dismantled platform, the unkempt glacis below it. "For what work, then, do they pay you?" she asked, bitterly.
"For none," he answered, but without resentment. "And—excuse me—" he went on, fumbling in his pocket, and producing a sovereign, which he tendered to her, "but your mention of pay reminds me to return you this, which Mrs. Treacher has handed to me. It appears—I must apologize for her—that she received it from you to give to the men who carried up your box from the steamer; but that, being a little frightened at the amount, she withheld it, thinking that possibly you had made a mistake."
Vashti took the coin. Her face was yet flushed a little—as he read it, with anger.
"It is true," said she pensively, "that I am fifteen years a stranger here."