"Wherever we may chance to meet."
"I must protest."
"Do not. The thing is evident."
They rode together silently.
Her face was toward the sunset. The light smote her yellow hair, and struck out her grave and offended look, as in a picture.
"To be condemned without a hearing!" she said. "The most dastardly criminal gets that. Is it imagined that I have no common feelings? Is it manly to follow me with studied insult? I can bear the hatred of fools. Contempt I have not deserved. Dead! I should be dead, if my conscience had once reproached me. I am a mark for slander, and brave men should beware of herding with despicable slanderers."
She spoke, gazing frontward all the while. The pace she maintained in no degree impeded the concentrated passion of her utterance.
But it was a more difficult task for him, going at that pace, to make explanations, and she was exquisitely fair to behold! The falling beams touched her with a mellow sweetness that kindled bleeding memories.
"If I defend myself?" he said.
"No. All I ask is that you should Accuse me. Let me know what I have done—done, that I have not been bitterly punished for? What is it? what is it? Why do you inflict a torture on me whenever you see me? Not by word, not by look. You are too subtle in your cruelty to give me anything I can grasp. You know how you wound me. And I am alone."