"You desired to speak with me, lady?" he said. "My life, which you have deigned to save, is entirely at your service."
She had stepped down from the dais as he approached, calling upon every fibre within her, upon every power granted to a woman who loves to touch the heart of the loved one. Though she knew that for ever after, he and she would henceforth be parted, her heart had so yearned for him that vaguely she had begun to delude herself with the hope that after all only a great misunderstanding existed between him and her, and that before they spoke the last words of farewell their hands would meet just once again—only as friends—only as comrades perhaps—but closely, trustfully for all that.
It was solely in this hope that she had begged for an interview.
His coldness chilled her. Now that he was near her again, she once more became conscious of that bitter feeling of awful jealousy which had caused her the most exquisite heart-ache which a human being could be called upon to endure. Memory brought back to her the vision of another woman—an unknown creature whom he loved, to the destruction of his own soul and honour.
And with the advent of this memory the tender appeal died upon her lips, and she only said in a hard, callous voice—
"Is that all that Your Grace would say to me?"
"Nay, indeed," he replied with the same icy calm, "there is much I ought to say, is there not? I should tell you how grateful I am for my life, which I owe to you. And yet I cannot even find it in my heart to say 'thank you' for so worthless a gift."
"Does life then seem so bitter now that the woman you love has proved a wanton and a coward?" she retorted vehemently.
He looked at her, a little puzzled by her tone, then said quietly—
"Nay! the woman I loved has proved neither a wanton nor a coward . . . only an illusion, a sweet dream of youth and innocence, which I, poor fool, mistook for reality."