“Why did you stop me killing such a brute?” cried the woman angrily, her eyes blazing. “They both meant to murder me, and would have done it if you had not come. They had earned death.”
“But I did not come to play the butcher,” I answered somewhat sternly, repelled by her indifference to bloodshed.
“Follow them and kill them now!” she cried vindictively. “Do you hear? Kill them before they carry the story of this rescue to their masters;” and in her frenzy she took hold of my arm and shook it, urging me toward the door.
“Better see to your wound,” I returned, as I sheathed my sword.
“Bah, you are mad! I have no patience with you!” She shrugged her shoulders as though I were little better than a contemptible coward, and walked to the end of the room and stood in the lamplight half turned away from me.
The pose revealed to me the full majestic grace of her form, while the profile of her face, as thrown into half shadow by the rather dim light of the room, set me wondering. It was not a beautiful face. The features, nose and mouth especially, were too large, the cheek bones too high, the colour too pale; but it was a face full of such power and strength and resource that it compelled your admiration and silenced your critical judgment. A woman to be remarked anywhere.
But when she turned her eyes upon me a moment later, they seemed to rivet me with an indescribable and irresistible fascination. In striking contrast to the rich red hair and the pale skin, the eyes were as black as night. The iris almost as dark as the pupil, the white opalescent in its clearness, and fringed with lashes and brows of deep brown. She caught my gaze on her, and held it with a look so intense that I could scarcely turn away.
Her bosom was heaving, and her breath coming and going quickly with her exertions and excitement, and after a moment, without saying a word, she threw herself into a low chair and hid her face in her hands.
Who could she be? That she was a woman of station was manifest. The richness of her dress, the appointments of the room, told this plainly, even if her mien and carriage had not proclaimed it; and yet she seemed alone in the house. It was a position of considerable embarrassment, and for the moment I did not know what to do.
I had no wish to be mixed up in any such intrigue as was clearly at the bottom of this business; and though I was glad to have saved her life, I was anxious to be gone before any further developments should involve me in unpleasant consequences.