Anthony looked at her stubbornly.
"Very well," said he. "Then I owe it to myself. And in debts owing to myself I always demand payment in full." He looked inshore, over the fields, green with the freshness of April; on a knoll, about a mile away, were the white walls of a house amid a screen of trees. "There's a farmstead," said Anthony; "we can find some means there of getting back to the city."
"I shall not stir," said Mademoiselle Lafargue.
"It's plain enough," said Anthony, "that you do not greatly favor my company. There are certain things which you believe of me; you've been told of plottings, of guilt, of treachery; and the shadow that I stand in is, no doubt, a dark one to your eyes. But why distrust me while you have confidences in certain others? For I, at least, have never tried to shoot a man as he slept, and I have never struck one who was helpless."
"I shall not stir from where I am," said the girl.
"It's a full mile across the fields to the house," said Anthony, "but I have no doubt I can carry you."
"You would not dare!" said she, startled.
"I think you used those very words on board the schooner," said he. There was a pause; and then he added quietly. "Will you go willingly, or must I do as I've said?"
She looked at him with level gaze; the fire in her eye was quieted, though her head was as high as ever.
"I will go," she said, "for there is nothing else for me to do. But I do not go willingly. You are compelling me, and I hate you for it."