“But who can tell what cause had that fair maid
To use him so that loved her so well?”
Spencer.
A moment later the girl proved that her sensibility was less or her courage higher than my estimate, for just as I had pictured a little earlier, she surprised me. I found her at my elbow, and I rose to my feet. Unluckily as I did so, I struck my injured arm against the chair, and she—winced.
That might have disarmed me, but it did not. I remembered the nine men who had been murdered in cold blood, and I thought of my narrow escape; after all I was not a dog to be hung without ceremony and buried in a ditch! And now she was in my power, now, if ever, was the time to bring home to her what she had done. Still, she was a woman, I owed her courtesy, and I endeavored to speak with politeness. “I see that you are more merciful,” I said, bowing, “in fact than in intention, Miss Wilmer.”
Her agitation was such—she did not try to hide it—that for a moment she could not speak. Then “If you knew all,” she said in a low voice, “you would know that I had grounds for what I did, Sir.” “That you had good grounds, I cannot believe,” I answered. “And for knowing all, I think I do. I know that you have suffered. I know that you have lost your mother and your brother. I know that you have grievances, sad grievances it may be against us.”
“You don’t know all,” she repeated more firmly. “But I know enough,” I rejoined—I was not to be moved from my purpose now. “I know that I was your father’s prisoner and your guest; and that you stood aside, you did not raise a hand, not a finger to save me, Miss Wilmer. You did not speak, though a word might have availed, and I believe would have availed to preserve me! You let me go out to a cruel death, you turned your back on me—”
“Oh, don’t! don’t!” she cried.
“You quail at the picture,” I retorted. “I do not wonder that you do. I was your guest, I was wounded, I was in pain, alone. Has a man, when he is maimed and laid aside, no claim on a woman? No claim on her forbearance, on her pity, on her protection? For shame, Miss Wilmer!” I continued warmly, carried farther than I intended by my feelings. “Men, when their blood is hot, will plan things, and do things, God knows, that are abominable. But for a woman to consent to such, and, when it is too late, to think that by a few tears she can make up for them—”
“Stop!” she cried—I suppose that I had gone too far, for she faced me now, hardily enough. “You understand nothing, sir! Nothing! So little that you will scarcely believe me when I say that if the thing were to do again—I would do it.”