He almost stumbled over her in the ravine, face downward among dead leaves, shaken with dry sobbing. He went on his knees beside her, gripping his hands together behind him so that he should not touch her. But his voice was beyond his control. It broke into little sounds of tenderness and dismay.
"Kate—you! But what has happened? Tell me! What is wrong with you? What?"
His nearness, the trembling of his voice, filled her with an exquisite terror. If she could have risen and run away she would have done so, but she dared not trust her legs. Nor could she look at him, there in the starlight, with this new secret in her eyes. She clutched desperately at her self-command.
He bent closer. "Kate, tell me! You are hurt. Dieu! That man—" It was the first time she had heard a trace of accent in his speech. "What has he done to you?"
Still she could not trust herself to speak. In the silence she heard his breath come hard. When he said, in a crisp, queer staccato that was not his voice at all:
"If Basil Kildare has hurt you, I shall kill him."
"No, no," she gasped out. "It is not Basil. It is you!" She would have given years of her life to recall the words the instant they were spoken.
"I? I have hurt you, I, who would—But tell me! You must tell me!"
His will was stronger than hers. She told him.
"I saw you—kiss her."