“You have won,” he said, quietly, and he turned so that he might not look at either Lucille or me.
“Oh, Edward, Edward,” sobbed Lucille. Then I led her away.
Simon, who had been absent all this time, came racing up the sandy stretch now. He cast himself down beside the body of his master, caressing him, and kissing his cold face.
“Water,” gasped Sir George.
Before Simon could rise I ran to the spring near the rock and hurried back with my cap full of the liquid. As I neared the place where the dying man lay, I saw something white, like a piece of parchment, in Simon’s hand, and the sailor hurriedly thrust it into his pocket.
Sir George drank eagerly, and Simon and I bathed his face.
The sun was fully up now, flooding us all in the golden light. The tide came farther on the sands, the gulls flitted out over the waves, and, in the woods back of us the birds were singing. It hardly seemed as if a few minutes ago that two men were battling there for each other’s lives, and that now one was dying.
I walked slowly away, as I thought Sir George might not like me near him in his last moments. But he raised his hand, and beckoned to me to approach. When I had leaned over him, for he could only whisper, I heard him say, between his gasps:
“Well--I have lost--but the stake--the stake was worth playing for. Had I my life to live over again, the chance to--to once more live and love--and--fight, I would not change one jot. I had deep laid plans, yet they failed. You were in my path, and, when I thought I had made an end for you--you came back to torment me, to rob me of my love.”
“Not to rob you,” I protested. “It was a fair fight, and she had a right to choose. ’Twas you who sought to rob me.”