"No. I refuse, that is all."
"This is not your last word?"
"It is my last word."
"Would you have me think that you are at one with the treacherous scheme, milor? and that you do not desire the safety of the Stuart prince?"
She had raised her voice, boldly accusing him, inwardly knowing that the accusation was groundless, yet wishing to goad him now into passion, into explanation, above all into acquiescence if it still lay in her power to force it.
But he took the insult with apparent calm, shrugged his shoulders and said quietly:
"As you please."
"Or is it . . . is it that you do not trust me? . . . that you think I . . . ?"
She could not finish the sentence, nor put into words the awful suggestion which had sprung like a stinging viper straight across the train of her thoughts. Her eyes dazed and burning tried to pierce the gloom wherein he stood, but the flickering light of the candles only threw weird, fantastic gleams upon his face, which suddenly seemed strange, unknown, incomprehensible to her. His figure appeared preternaturally tall, the sober gray of his coat looked like the pall of an avenging ghost. He was silent and had made no sign of protest, when she framed the terrible query.
A bitter, an awful humiliation overwhelmed her. She felt as if right within her heart something had snapped and crumbled, which nothing on earth could ever set up again.