She braced herself and rose, drawing her hand free. Her head still swam, but she controlled herself resolutely. She stood before him like a prisoner upon trial.
"Jake," she said, "I am going to tell you something that will make you terribly angry; but it's something that you must know."
She paused, but he sat in silence, grimly watching her. She found her resolution wavering and gripped it with all her strength.
"When I came back here from Liverpool, it was not--not to see my mother as I gave you to understand. It was to--to--" She faltered under his look, found she could not continue, and suddenly threw out her hands in piteous appeal. "Jake, don't make it impossible for me to tell you!"
He rose also. They stood face to face. "Are you going to tell me that you lied to me?" he said.
She drew back from him sharply. The question felt like a blow. "I am telling you the truth now," she said.
"And for whose sake?" He flung the words brutally, as a man goaded beyond endurance. But the moment they were uttered he drew a hard breath as though he would recall them. He came to her, took her by the shoulders. "You take my advice!" he said. "Leave the whole miserable business alone! You've been tricked--badly tricked. You have appealed to me to protect you, and that's enough. I don't want any more than that. I reckon I understand the situation better than you think. You are trying to tell me that it was your original intention to elope with Saltash. Well, maybe it was. But you had given up the notion before you went to him at the Castle, and he knew you had given it up. If he hadn't known it, he wouldn't have taken the trouble to drug you. It's an old device--old as the hills. He's probably done it a score of times, and with more success than he had to-day. Yes, that makes you sick. I guessed it would. And that's what he's going to answer to me for,--what he'll ask your pardon for on his knees before I've done with him."
"Oh no, Jake, no!" She broke in upon him with a cry of consternation. "For pity's sake, no! Jake, I can't bear it! I cannot bear it! Jake, I beseech you, leave him alone now! Oh, do leave him alone! You--you can punish me in any other way. I'll bear anything but that--anything but that!"
Piteously she besought him, shaken to the soul by the grim purport of his speech. She did not flinch from him now. Rather she appealed to him as one in sore straits, pouring out her entreaty with all that remained of her quivering strength.
And her words made an impression upon him of which she was instantly aware. His hands still held her, but the tension went out of his grasp. He looked at her with eyes that were no longer hard, eyes that held a dawning compassion.