The darkest look she had ever seen in his face came over it now. He laid his hand in hers. There was warning, not gratitude, in the light touch.
“Hermione,” he said, “you are good and earnest. I thank you, because you mean well; but when Clarice died I swore to do nothing else in life until I had traced and punished the one who slew her. You are a happy wife, a happy mother, the honored mistress of a happy home! She lies in her grave, forgotten almost, save by me. I am her avenger!”
A bright flush crimsoned her face.
“Do you not think the task belongs to Ronald rather than to you?”
“No,” he replied, frankly. “There are no secrets between us, Hermione; we both know that, although he was kind to her, although he did his best to avenge her, yet Sir Ronald did not love her as I did. She was the very core of my heart, she was the life of my soul.”
“And yet,” pleaded the gentle voice, “she was another man’s wife.”
“I know it. Were she living I should never come near her. I should never utter her name! I should, to the best of my power, trample every thought of her remorselessly down! But she is dead, Hermione, and love for the dead can never be a sin. She calls to me from her grave with a voice no one else can hear; she comes to me in the silent hours of the night when no one else on earth thinks of her, and she reproaches me that she is yet unavenged.”
“Dear Kenelm, it is but a morbid fancy. I do not believe the dead can wish for vengeance.”
“Justice is a mighty attribute,” he said, and there came to his face a light she had never seen there before. “Her fair, sweet life was cut short. She was slain even with a smile on her lips. She was young, fair, loving and happy. She had for her own all the fairest gifts of earth, and one foul stroke deprived her of all, and sent her without time for one prayer into the presence of her God. Hermione, if a man stole from you money, jewels, or worldly goods, you would cry out that justice demanded punishment! Who so stole from her her sweet life, with its full measure of great gifts, deserves punishment in proportion to his crime. If word or deed of mine can bring him to it, I pray the great God to nerve my right arm, and let no weakness come between me and my duty.”
She looked at him with something of fear and awe—this stern avenger, this man in whose eyes there came no light, was not in the least like the kindly Kenelm, with whom she had played and danced as a girl.