Margaret shrank back with a look of fear.
"No, no!" she gasped; "not a word. It is all past and—and buried. I am as one that is dead to the world, and he—he is forgiven."
"Forgiven!" he echoed. "Ay, by an angel; but we are not all angels. No; some of us are men."
His face was so awful in its wrath and craving for vengeance that Margaret sprung to him and seized his arm.
"Prince, what would you do?"
He took her hand and dropped it from his arm with a little shudder, as if her touch had stung him; then, half mad with love, half frenzied by the passionate desire for vengeance on her behalf and his own, he took her hand and pressed it to his lips.
"I understand!" he said hoarsely; "oh, yes; I understand! He has wronged you—but you love him still!"
Margaret shrunk back, and covered her face with her hands.
"Yes," he muttered: "you love him still. Heaven help me!"
Margaret's heart was wrung by the agony in that cry of a strong man mortally stricken, and in her anguish and pity she fell at his feet, sobbing bitterly.