Why I was led to say this I cannot tell, but something unloosened my tongue.
"How could you render service to your King and your Country?" she asked. "Have you discovered anything?"
"Yes, I believe I have. I believe I know more than all our Secret Service officers do."
"But surely you will not keep your knowledge to yourself?"
"Just now you called me blind," was my reply. "I don't think I am blind, but I am obstinate. Dying men have strange fancies, and I have a fancy that I can do what no one else can. I have a feeling that if I told my secret to the officials they would bungle my plans; that is why I am going to act alone."
"Are you going to place yourself in danger?"
"What matter if I do? I have only a little while to live, and if—if...." I stopped suddenly, for I realized that I had told her more than I meant to tell any one, that in my excitement I had been reckless and foolish.
"You speak in riddles," she said. "You have no right to put yourself in danger. I don't understand at all what you are saying. Tell me what you mean, will you?"
I shook my head. "Everything is so much in the clouds, so visionary, that it would be foolish to try to tell you anything. Good-day, I must be going now." And I walked away without another word, leaving her at the gates of her own home.
As I reflected afterwards, I had not played a very magnanimous part. I had been rude almost to a point of brutality, and yet I had not been able to help myself. Something in her very presence aroused my opposition, my anger. I cannot tell why, but when I was with her, feelings which I had never known at other times almost mastered me. I knew then, as I had known all along, that I had no love for her, and yet I was conscious that I was within an ace of throwing myself at her feet. Such was the power she had over me; but all the time I knew there was an unbreakable barrier between us. Something, I could not tell what, repelled me, made me adamant.