"Nothing—nothing! That was why."
"But I was in no danger—you did not even know that I was detained. And she says that Godfather was mixed up in it—yet you never said a word of it!" And now she was looking at him indeed. "Is it possible that down there in the orchard, when my heart was breaking about you, you took me in your arms and comforted me . . . with lies!"
The hated word stung him a little in the midst of everything else.
"How could I tell you the truth, my darling, when, as you say, your heart was breaking like that? And, although I sent the letter to save you, it was part of a ruse—a plan I had made beforehand. Can't you believe me, Avoye?"
"But it is all so crazy!" she exclaimed. "I in danger of being shot—I to whom they apologized! . . . And Godfather, what was he doing in it? He never came there! And you really thought, you——"
Poor child, poor lamb, so bewildered under the touch of the knife. Oh, to get through this barbarity quickly! "Dearest, I will tell you exactly what happened. But sit down, for pity's sake." He seized and swung forward a little gilt chair. "If only I had never given that woman the chance of springing it on you like this—if only I had guessed that she knew!"
But she recoiled from him. She would none of the chair. She went back as far as the carved stone of the hearth and put a hand to that. And then she faced him. "Be quick, Aymar, be quick! I'm . . . frightened!"
So, standing in front of her, and in front of the proud, indifferent swans of their blazon, he told her shortly the other, the true, complete story. But it had a strange sound in his own ears now.
There was fear indeed in her eyes when he had finished. And when he said, "Do you see, my dear, a little, why I wanted you never to know?" and tried to take her hand, she drew it away and shook her head.
"How can they both be true—that you did it for a military reason, which you told me first, and that you did it to save me because you imagined—imagined—that I was in danger?"