"You have a most chivalrous soul, Captain Ireton. I do not wonder you are so fierce to shake it free of the poor body of clay."
"But you do not deny it!" I cried.
"Of what use would it be? I have said that I would not have you die shamefully on the gallows; so I may as well confess to the poppy-juice in the tea. Tell me, Monsieur John; was it nasty bitter?"
"Good Lord!" I groaned; "are you a woman, or a fiend?"
"Either, or both, as you like to hold me, sir. But come what might, I said you should not die a felon's death. And you have not, as yet."
"Better a thousand times the rope and tree than that I should rot by inches here with you to sit by and gird at me. Ah, my lady, you are having your revenge of me."
"Merci, encore. Shall I go away and leave you?"
"No, not that." A cold sweat broke out upon me in a sudden childish horror of the solitude and the darkness and the fetters. And then I added: "But 'twould be angel kindness if you would leave off torturing me. I am but a man, dear lady, and a sick man at that."
All in a flash her mood changed and she bent to lay a cool palm on my throbbing temples.
"Poor Monsieur John!" she said softly; "I meant not to make you suffer more, but rather less." Then she found water and a napkin to wring out and bind upon my aching head.