He did not touch her, but leaned from his chair so that he appeared to kneel. Certainly the man’s heart knelt as before a shrine.
“What I would know is this— Why did you reject Baltimore? I know no other woman that had done it. Is your heart so hard? Could you not forgive the man? Men err and women should pardon.”
She never raised the veil of her lashes, only her hands trembled a little. Was he pleading for the absent?
“Since I saw you this question hath torn me. Is your chastity so cold, Diana, that you only cannot pity the flame you inspire? You saw him falsely changed, wounded, repentant, and yet you refused him. Tell me why, I beseech you.”
“I pitied him. I would have bound his wound,” she said at last, very low.
“Then why—why?” says he urgently. “Pity is near love, they say.”
“I cannot love him, your Grace. You counselled me once to marry. I could not. My heart spoke for me and refused.”
He considered on that a moment, then continued.
“You know what followed. You heard me, and now I ask a question so mad that you’ll do well to kill me with the scorn in those large eyes— But answer first. Could I have said what he said—had I been free and not a fettered slave, would you have dismist me also?”
Then, in a quick revulsion—“No, don’t answer, for I have no strength to hear.”