“Ah!” she cried. “You preach against hate, yet you hate the Germans. That isn’t consistent. You do hate the Germans?”
“Yes,” he admitted; “I suppose that’s true. But I never hated a German before their bestial ravishment of Belgium. I never imagined anything so brutal could defame the prestige of a great nation. They will never live that down. The things they’ve done... And the spying and underhand work... Yes, I hate them all right.”
“You hate Heinrich,” she persisted.
“I hate the things he has done.”
“I know,” she said. “But what he has done, he has done for me. Always, when I was still a child, he loved me. Can you wonder that I feel grateful to him? I am sorry you hate him. I don’t want harm to come to him through you... not through you. Promise me that you will go away and never seek to harm him in the future... Promise me that—for my sake.”
Had Matheson not already realised that the punishment of Holman was no longer work for him he must have yielded to the earnest entreaty in Honor’s voice and eyes, as with nervous insistence she urged her request that he would spare her husband; but her pleading stabbed him, and excited afresh his enmity towards the man.
“There is no need to wring promises from me,” he said, a hardness he could not prevent steeling his voice. “The fact that he is your husband is sufficient. Had I known that sooner I should not be here now. As it is, more harm has come to me than to him. It was not compassion on his side that prevented him from murdering me.”
“He was desperate,” she pleaded; “he feared you. He fears you still.”
“Perhaps,” he exclaimed with angry suspicion, “he sent you to intercede for him?”
“No,” she cried quickly—“not that I came because—because—” Her voice broke on a sob. “You are so hard,” she said. “I cannot touch you. Have you no pity—for me?”