She would talk it all out. She must, for she was a woman.
She would blame, argue, say dreadful words,—dreadful, because true and deserved. Then she would grow angry, as women do when they are most in the right, and say too much,—dreadful words, which would be untrue and undeserved. Then he should resist, recriminate. He would not stand it. He could not stand it. No. He could never face her again.
And yet if he had seen a man insult her,—if he had seen her at that moment in peril of the slightest danger, the slightest bruise, he would have rushed forward like a madman, and died, saving her from that bruise. And he knew that: and with the strange self-contradiction of human nature, he soothed his own conscience by the thought that he loved her still; and that, therefore—somehow or other, he cared not to make out how—he had done her no wrong. Then he blustered again, for the benefit of his men. He would teach these monks of Crowland a lesson. He would burn the minster over their heads.
“That would be pity, seeing they are the only Englishmen left in England,” said Siward the White, his nephew, very simply.
“What is that to thee? Thou hast helped to burn Peterborough at my bidding; and thou shalt help to burn Crowland.”
“I am a free gentleman of England; and what I choose, I do. I and my brother are going to Constantinople to join the Varanger guard, and shall not burn Crowland, or let any man burn it.”
“Shall not let?”
“No,” said the young man, so quietly, that Hereward was cowed.
“I—I only meant—if they did not do right by me.”
“Do right thyself,” said Siward.