“Is it because you do love Seytoun?” I demanded, full of jealous wrath in an instant.
“Foolish boy! Do you say that because I won’t let you quarrel with Captain Seytoun? There may be better reasons why I wish you to keep the peace in that quarter, sir.”
“Yet you say you do not love me?”
“I don’t, Mr. Richard Page—not in the coat you are wearing.”
My arms went out to her, and she moved her chair well out of my reach before she went on.
“No; don’t assume that the coat is a little thing, lightly to be ignored. It is not, for a Leigh. I shall gladly die a spinster before I’ll ever wed it, I do assure you, Dick.”
All this time she was looking steadily into the fire, and I was wondering where her heart-broken sorrow of the night before had gone. But it came, even while I was seeking for words in which to hint that my present Judas-coat might not always stand between us; the trembling of the sweet lips, the welling up of the tears.
“Oh, what madness possessed you, Dick?” she wailed; “you, who were the bravest, the most devoted, the most cheerful when all was darkest!”
I rose and settled my sword-belt. There was more love-violence ahead if I should stay; that, and the certain breaking of my promise to Mr. Hamilton.
“I have greatly overstayed my time; I must go, Beatrix, dear,” I said, and I scarcely knew the sound of my own voice. And when she rose, I caught her in my arms before she could escape. “Kiss me, sweetheart, and bid me God-speed,” I begged.