She sank on her knees before him.
“Can’t you understand why I am here?” she cried passionately. “It was I who told of the silken cord and knife!”
He was wholly unmoved. He even smiled, as though the thing were of no moment.
“It was right that you should do so,” he declared. “You must not reproach yourself with that.”
“But I do! I do!” she cried again. “I always shall! Don’t you understand that if you stay here they will treat you—”
He interrupted, laying his hand gently upon her shoulder.
“Dear young lady,” he said, “you need never fear that I shall wait for the touch of your men of law. Death is too easily won for that. If the end which you have spoken of comes, there is another way—another house of rest which I can reach.”
She rose slowly to her feet. The absolute serenity of his manner bespoke an impregnability of purpose before which the words died away on her lips. She realized that she might as well plead with the dead!
“You do not mind,” he whispered, “if I tell you that you must not stay here any longer?”
He led her toward the door. Upon the threshold he took her cold fingers into his hand and kissed them reverently.