But Delacroix interrupted him, speaking very slowly, and with an inexpressibly mournful intonation of voice.
"Let her go on," he said. "It was for her sake I did it, and most meet it is that she should pay me for it with ingratitude. Who ever served or loved a woman and met with other guerdon for his services? I was a fool—I am a fool, but I did not expect this at her hands."
He hung down his bold head as he spoke, and one or two big tears, the first he had shed for years, rolled down his swarthy cheeks.
"And now bid your men strike the tent, and pack just what baggage your lady cannot spare. Pack it on the dragoon horse, whose saddle is left empty by that murderer's deed, who has dearly rued it. The rest with the tent and pontoon must be abandoned, and the mules that bore them must be slain. Let them hide everything in the chaparral; the sun will have set within an hour. Meanwhile, I will go forth and see that the coast is clear."
"But whither, whither are you about to lead us?" inquired Gordon, anxiously.
"If you trust me you will follow me, lieutenant, whithersoever I lead you. If not, you will not follow me at all, for if it be my intent to deceive you, I can do so by words as well as by actions.
"Oh, Major Delacroix!" exclaimed Julia, who had recovered from her bewilderment, and was sensible of the error she had committed, "you are offended, you are angry with me, and justly—I have been most ungrateful."
"Not angry, lady—not offended. A man cannot be angry with such a one as you, do what you will with him. I am disappointed, perhaps hurt, but certainly neither angry nor offended."
"You must forgive me," she exclaimed, springing passionately forward, and catching his hand in both her own, "you must—you must forgive me. I knew not then, I know not even now, what it was I said—will you but forgive me?"
"Surely I would, had I anything to forgive, sweet lady," he replied, with a grave, sad smile. "But I have nothing, unless it be," he added, with a low sigh, "my own folly. But a truce to this, we have indeed no time for parleying. Will you trust me and follow me? As we ride onward I will tell you whither."