“Did I ever scold you?”
“No, dear Gerard. Well, then, Martin said it was blood those cruel dogs followed; so I thought if I could but have a little blood on my shoon, the dogs would follow me instead, and let my Gerard wend free. So I scratched my arm with Martin's knife—forgive me! Whose else could I take? Yours, Gerard? Ah, no. You forgive me?” said she beseechingly, and lovingly and fawningly, all in one.
“Let me see this scratch first,” said Gerard, choking with emotion. “There, I thought so. A scratch? I call it a cut—a deep, terrible, cruel cut.”
Gerard shuddered at sight of it.
“She might have done it with her bodkin,” said the soldier. “Milksop! that sickens at sight of a scratch and a little blood.”
“No, no. I could look on a sea of blood, but not on hers. Oh, Margaret! how could you be so cruel?”
Margaret smiled with love ineffable. “Foolish Gerard,” murmured she, “to make so much of nothing.” And she flung the guilty arm round his neck. “As if I would not give all the blood in my heart for you, let alone a few drops from my arm.” And with this, under the sense of his recent danger, she wept on his neck for pity and love; and he wept with her.
“And I must part from her,” he sobbed; “we two that love so dear—one must be in Holland, one in Italy. Ah me! ah me! ah me!”
At this Margaret wept afresh, but patiently and silently. Instinct is never off its guard, and with her unselfishness was an instinct. To utter her present thoughts would be to add to Gerard's misery at parting, so she wept in silence.
Suddenly they emerged upon a beaten path, and Martin stopped.