“But you do not say that you will escape!” she returned, her quick intuition penetrating behind the masking words.
“No; I can not say that, Beatrix. The thing I am pledged to do is a most desperate thing: and the promise of success is not great. Yet, as I say, it will be over to-night.”
“Dick,” she said, coming close again, “what is this mission of yours that puts your life in jeopardy every hour, that has made you lay aside your dignity as an officer, that has been great enough to bring you here as a deserter and to take a service, every step in which must be a wretched lie? We may well be parting for the last time in our two lives, Dick, dear: don’t deny me this time.”
If she had not said that word about the parting—a word which was all too likely to be true—I think I might still have withstood her. But that one word broke down the barrier of my resolve, and so, flinging my soldier promise to Mr. Hamilton to the winds, I told her all, in tones that grew more and more the tones of shame when I realized what it meant to spread the harsh, brutal, military necessity of the kidnapping plan upon the tables of a pure woman’s mind and heart.
She heard me through without interruption, sitting, as she had sat that other night, gazing steadfastly into the heart of the embers on the hearthstone. But when I had made an end, she began to speak in a low voice, never letting her eyes meet mine.
“I do not at all understand these things, Dick: no woman ever can, I fear. We are taught at our mother’s knees that a lie is wrong; a thing to shudder at, to turn away from in loathing. We are taught that the finest things in those we love are truth and honor, and that the finest of all is the high honor’s honor that rises above the most binding necessity, or seeming necessity, that can constrain us. Yet you tell me that all this must go down at the bidding of a thing called military duty; that one must lie, cheat, steal, swear false oaths—”
“No,” I interposed. “By some curious oversight I have not yet been required to take the oath of allegiance to King George.”
She put the excuse aside with a little gesture of patient weariness.
“What does it matter whether or not you have missed the chance of saying over the formal words? By every act and word and the breath you draw, you are protesting that you are a true man in your present standing. The man you will strike down to-night has had no hint of warning; miserable traitor as he is, he still believes you are his friend—not only his captain servant, but his friend. He trusts you with his love-letters to his wife; he takes you fully into his confidence. Is it not so?”
“It is,” I confessed. And then I broke out passionately: “But my word is passed; I must not give this up, Beatrix! You must not make me give it up!”