He looked steadfastly at Constance.
"Sir John can go," he said, "for all the debt of ill-will I owe him, he can go from here unharmed. My dear girl, it rests entirely with you!"
She did not understand.
"Oh, then let him go now, at once."
"That man," he answered, "lives, or dies a peculiarly unpleasant death; goes free, or is nothing but a heap of clothes in half an hour, as you shall decide, Constance."
By the slow dilation of her eyes, I think she knew what he would say.
"It is like this," he went on. "If I cannot have Love, the real thing, at least Fate has put it in my power to demand—and have!—the second best, the semblance of it. The moment that you give me your solemn promise to marry me, Sir John walks out on to the moor."
I gave Constance one swift, warning look. Would the man believe that another was as base as he himself? Everything depended on that.
"You cannot do it, Constance," I said, with a careful tremor in my voice, trying to suggest a slight dawn of hope, and again I sent her a signal of caution.