"You ... you..." she murmured with horror and contempt. "Nay! I pray you do not speak to me.... You ... you have duped and tricked me, and I ... I ... Oh!" she added with a wealth of bitter reproach, "what wrong had I or my dear brother done to you that you should wish to do him so much harm? What price had his enemies set upon his head that you should sell it to them?"
He tried to interrupt her, for her words hurt him ten thousand times more than the wound in his shoulder: with almost superhuman effort he dragged himself to his feet, clinging to the bracken to hold himself upright. He would not let her see how she made him suffer. She! his beautiful white rose, whom unwittingly he had, it seemed, so grievously wronged. Her mind was distraught, she did not understand, and oh! it was impossible that she could realise the cruelty of her words, more hard to endure than any torture the fiendish brain of man could devise.
"I'd have given you gold," she continued, whilst heavy sobs choked the voice in her throat, "if 'twas gold you wanted.... Here is the purse you did not take just now! Two hundred guineas for you, sir, an you bring me back those letters!"
And with a last gesture of infinite scorn she threw the purse on the ground before him.
A cry escaped him then: the terrible, heart-rending cry of the wild beast wounded unto death. But it was momentary; that great love he bore her helped him to understand. Love is never selfish—always kind. Love always understands.
He could scarcely speak now, and the seconds were very precious, but with infinite gentleness he contrived to murmur faintly,—
"Madam! I swear by those sweet lips of yours now turned in anger against me that you do me grievous wrong. My fault, alas! is great! I cannot deny it, since in this short, mad hour of the dance my eyes were blind and mine ears deaf to all save to your own dear presence."
"Aye! 'twas a clever trick," she retorted, lashing herself to scorn, wilfully deaf to the charm of that faint voice, turning away from the tender appeal of his eyes: "a trick from beginning to end! Your chivalry at the forge! your rôle of gallant gentleman of the road! the while you plotted with a boon companion to rob me of the very letters that would have saved my brother's life."
"Letters? ... that would have saved your brother's life? ... What letters?..."
"Nay, sir! I pray you fool me no further. Heaven only knows how you learnt our secret, for I'll vouch that John Stich was no traitor. Those letters were stolen, sir, by your accomplice, whilst you tricked me into this dance."