“I should have been with them but for you,” she said quietly. “Don’t think that I don’t know it. Don’t think that I don’t regret sometimes, Hugh, that I didn’t trust you a little more completely. You are right about so many things. But, Hugh, will you tell me something?”
“Of course!”
“Why were you so almost obstinately silent when father spoke of poor Captain Granet’s death?”
“Because I couldn’t agree with what he said,” Thomson replied. “I think that Granet’s death in exactly that fashion was the best thing that could possibly have happened for him and for all of us.”
She shivered as she looked at him.
“Aren’t you a little cruel?” she murmured.
“I am not cruel at all,” he assured her firmly. “Let me quote the words of a greater man—‘I have no enemies but the enemies of my country, and for them I have no mercy.’”
“You still believe that Captain Granet—”
“There is no longer any doubt as to his complete guilt. As you know yourself, the cipher letter warning certain people in London of the coming raid, passed through his hands. He even came here to warn you. There were other charges against him which could have been proved up to the hilt. While we are upon this subject, Geraldine, let me finish with it absolutely. Only a short time ago I confronted him with his guilt, I gave him ten days during which it was my hope that he would embrace the only honourable course left to him. I took a risk leaving him free, but during the latter part of the time he was watched day and night. If he had lived until this morning, there isn’t any power on earth could have kept him from the Tower, or any judge, however merciful, who could have saved him from being shot.”
“It is too awful,” she faltered, “and yet—it makes me so ashamed, Hugh, to think that I could not have trusted you more absolutely.”