Here was a man who was a terrible scoundrel, yet a mightily pleasing one for all that. He was now rich, of high consideration and power; he professed and undoubtedly felt a great and genuine love for Rose Marie. On the other hand, the other—his daughter's rightful lord—only too ready, nay, anxious, to repudiate her—who truly was a far greater blackguard and not nearly such an attractive one—he was now poor and insignificant—always providing that Michael Kestyon's story was true and—and—
Good M. Legros' conscience was having such a tough fight inside him that he had to take out his vast, coloured handkerchief and to mop his forehead well, for he was literally in a sweat of intense perturbation. He would not meet Michael's enquiring eyes, lest the latter should read in his own the ready assent which they proclaimed. The worst of the situation was that good M. Legros was bound to leave the ultimate decision to his daughter, and alas, he knew quite well what that decision would be. And God help them all, but he was bound to admit that that decision was the only right one, in the sight of the Lord and of all His self-denying and uncomfortably rigid saints.
Even now Rose Marie's clear voice, which had lost all its childlike ring of old and all its light tones of joy, broke in on her father's meditation.
"Sir, or my lord," she said coldly, "for of a truth I know not which you are, meseems you do a cowardly thing by appealing to my father. He would only have my earthly welfare in view, and even in this he might be mistaken if he thought that my earthly welfare could lie there, where there is disloyalty and shameless betrayal. For all your pride, good sir, and for all your defiance, you cannot e'en persuade yourself that what you do is right. As for me, I am a wife—not yours, my lord—despite the trick wherewith you drew from me an oath at the altar. I swore no love, no allegiance to any man save to him whom you have now wholly despoiled and beggared—nay," she added with a look of pride at least as great as his own, "I need no reminder, sir, that I stand here, a cast-out wife, repudiated for no fault of mine own, but through an infamy in which you bore the leading hand. But, nevertheless, I am a wife, and as such God hath enjoined me to cleave to my husband. Since you have beggared him, I, thank God, can still enrich him. Never have I blest my father's wealth so sincerely as now, when it can go to proving to a scoffer that there is truth and loyalty in women, even when sordid self-interest fights against truth and justice. And if all the world, his king and country, turned against my lord, I, his wife, good sir, his wife in the sight of God, despite dispensations, despite courts of law and decrees of popes or kings, I, his wife, for all that would still be ready to serve him."
Gradually her voice as she spoke had become more steady and also less trenchant; there was a quiver of passion in it, the passion of self-sacrifice. And he—poor man—mistook that warm, vibrating ring in the sweet, tender voice for the expression of true love felt for another.
"I did not know that you loved him, Rose Marie," he said simply.
She bent her head in order to hide the blush which rose to her cheeks at his words. Was she thankful that he had misunderstood? Perhaps! For of a truth it would make the battle less hard to fight, and would guard against defeat. But, nevertheless, two heavy tears rose to her eyes, and strive as she might she could not prevent their falling down onto her hands which were clasped before her.
He saw the tears, and heard her murmur:
"He who was my lord of Stowmaries is a beggar now."
"No, not a beggar," he rejoined quietly, "for he is rich beyond the dreams of men."