"I wish none o' your thanks, sir—"
"None the less I bestow 'em—on my Lady Brandon's behalf. Furthermore—"
"Enough, sir, I would be alone."
"Furthermore," he continued and with another airy motion of his white fingers, "I would have you particularly remark that if my Lady Brandon, lacking better company, hath stooped to any small familiarities with you, these must be forgot and—"
"Ha!" I cried, springing to my feet, "Begone, paltry fool, lest I kick you harder than I did last time at Conisby Shene."
"Insolent gallows'-rogue!" he panted, reaching for his sword-hilt, but as he freed it from scabbard I closed with him and, wrenching it from his hold, belaboured him soundly with the flat of it, and such of his companions as chanced within my reach, until hearing shouts, I espied Adam approaching with divers of his grinning fellows; whereupon I snapped the blade across my knee and hasted from the place.
I strode on haphazard in a blind fury, but reaching the woods at last and safe from all observation, I cast myself down therein, and gradually my anger grew to a great bitterness. For (thinks I) "gallows'-rogue" am I in very truth an outcast from my kind, a creature shamed by pillory and lash, a poor wretch for spiteful Fortune's buffets. Hereupon (being a blind fool ever) I cursed the world and all men in it saving only my unworthy self. And next, bethinking me of my dear lady who of her infinite mercy had stooped to love such as I, it seemed that my shame must smirch her also, that rather than lifting me to her level I must needs drag her down to mine. She, wedding me, gave all, whiles I, taking all, had nought to offer in return save my unworthiness. Verily it seemed that my hopes of life with her in England were but empty dreams, that I had been living in the very Paradise of Fools unless—
Here I raised bowed head, and clenching my fists stared blindly before me.
How if the ship should sail without us?