“Why was he killed?” she asked, horror-stricken and with pale lips.
“I do not know, but if I killed him, it was because I revolted from the proposals he made to me. I—” He paused, for the look on her face was painful to see, and her body was as that of one who had been struck by lightning. It had a crumpled, stricken look, and all force seemed to be driven from it. It had the look of crushed vitality. Her face was set in paleness, her eyes were frightened, her whole person was, as it were, in ghastly captivity. His heart smote him, and he pulled himself together to tell her all.
“Go on,” she said. “I want to hear. I want—to know all. I ought to have known—long ago; but that can’t be helped now. Continue—please.”
Her words had come slowly, in gasps almost, and her voice was so frayed he could scarcely recognize it. All the pride of her nature seemed shattered.
“If I killed him,” he said presently, “it was because he tried to tempt me from my allegiance to the Crown to become a servant of France, to—”
He stopped short, for a cry came from her lips which appalled him.
“My God—my God!” she said with bloodless lips, her eyes fastened on his face, her every look and motion the inflection of despair. “Go on—tell all,” she added presently with more composure.
Swiftly he described what happened in the little room at the traitor’s tavern, of the momentary reconciliation and the wine that he drank, drugged wine poured out but not drunk by Erris Boyne, and of his later unconsciousness. At last he paused.
“Why did these things not come out at the trial?” she asked in hushed tones.
He made a helpless gesture. “I did not speak of them because I thought of you. I hid it—I did not want you to know what your father was.”