Had Lucille planned to sail with her former lover? Was she true to me, or a fickle jade, blown this way and that, like many women? These things I much desired to hear the truth of. But yet she had said of me, “I love him.”
“Madame,” I said, and at the formal word Lucille glanced, half frightened at me, “strange events have come to pass between us since last we met. You were my promised wife when I sailed against St. Johns. I returned to be cast into prison on a foul charge, but not before one had met me with the words that you were his wife, and that I had no right to your love, nor you to mine.”
“His wife?” began Lucille, and Sir George smiled at the trick he had played.
“Oh, of the falsity of that I soon learned,” I went on, “for I met Nanette in Boston. But no sooner do I learn you are not wedded to Sir George Keith than I hear that you have sailed with him. Perchance you have since thought better of your troth to me, and are, even now, his wife.”
“His wife? Never!” cried Lucille.
“No,” said Sir George slowly, “not my wife, but----”
I would have leaped at him, unarmed though I was, and though he held his sword so that I must have run upon it, had not Lucille grasped my arm.
“Not--not--oh, my God, not his----” I could not finish for Lucille’s hand was over my mouth.
The next instant I had my answer. For she placed her arms about my neck, and before him, before the man I believed she had cast me aside for, she kissed me full on the lips, and spoke my name.
“Edward!”