There was a touch of indignation in her voice. Somehow she seemed moved to anger against him. Her hands were clasped at her side rigidly, her pulses throbbing. He stood looking at her fixedly, as though trying to realise her. His silence agitated her still further, and she spoke excitedly:
“I could have, would have, killed him myself without a moment’s regret. He had planned, planned—ah, God, can you not see it all! I would have taken his life without a thought. I was mad to go upon such an adventure, but I meant no ill. I had not one thought that I could not have cried out from the housetops, and he had in his heart—he had what you saw. But you repent that you killed him—by accident, it was by accident. Do you realise how many times others have been trapped by him as was I? Do you not see what he was—as I see now? Did he not say as much to me before you came, when I was dumb with terror? Did he not make me understand what his whole life had been? Did I not see in a flash the women whose lives he had spoiled and killed? Would I have had pity? Would I have had remorse? No, no, no! I was frightened when it was done, I was horrified, but I was not sorry; and I am not sorry. It was to be. It was the true end to his vileness. Ah!”
She shuddered, and buried her face in her hands for a moment, then went on: “I can never forgive myself for going to the Palace with him. I was mad for experience, for mystery; I wanted more than the ordinary share of knowledge. I wanted to probe things. Yet I meant no wrong. I thought then nothing of which I shall ever be ashamed. But I shall always be ashamed because I knew him, because he thought that I—oh, if I were a man, I should be glad that I had killed him, for the sake of all honest women!”
He remained silent. His look was not upon her, he seemed lost in a dream; but his face was fixed in trouble.
She misunderstood his silence. “You had the courage, the impulse to—to do it,” she said keenly; “you have not the courage to justify it. I will not have it so.
“I will tell the truth to all the world. I will not shrink I shrank yesterday because I was afraid of the world; to-day I will face it, I will—”
She stopped suddenly, and another look flashed into her face. Presently she spoke in a different tone; a new light had come upon her mind. “But I see,” she added. “To tell all is to make you the victim, too, of what he did. It is in your hands; it is all in your hands; and I cannot speak unless—unless you are ready also.”
There was an unintended touch of scorn in her voice. She had been troubled and tried beyond bearing, and her impulsive nature revolted at his silence. She misunderstood him, or, if she did not wholly misunderstand him, she was angry at what she thought was a needless remorse or sensitiveness. Did not the man deserve his end?
“There is only one course to pursue,” he rejoined quietly, “and that is the course we entered upon last night. I neither doubted yourself nor your courage. Thee must not turn back now. Thee must not alter the course which was your own making, and the only course which thee could, or I should, take. I have planned my life according to the word I gave you. I could not turn back now. We are strangers, and we must remain so. Thee will go from here now, and we must not meet again. I am—”
“I know who you are,” she broke in. “I know what your religion is; that fighting and war and bloodshed is a sin to you.”