"I cannot unsay the truth, Yvon de Mereac, even when thy house's honour is at stake. Nay! blame not me, but rather her who so cruelly hath dragged it in the mire."
"But it is a lie," he cried passionately, "a foul and cruel lie. Who dared speak such words to thee, Diane? I will have him hanged to the nearest tree for thus smirching the fair name of a noble maiden."
Diane laid a soft, caressing hand on his clenched palm; the eyes she turned to his sparkling and indignant ones were full of tears.
"Alas! alas! my Yvon!" she whispered. "Should I have dared thus to speak of thy sister had I not for myself discovered the truth of the accusation?"
He lay back on his couch, panting and almost breathless with emotion; but his eyes dilated still with fear and horror as he listened to her smooth, softly spoken words.
"But for the love I bear thee, Yvon, no word should have crossed my lips; but because even now it may not be too late to save thee, love hath unsealed my lips, and I hereby do solemnly declare to thee that thy sister Gwennola, and she alone, is answerable for this thy deadly sickness."
"Nay, I cannot believe it," he cried with a quick sob. "What! Gwennola try to slay me? my father's little Gwennola a witch? It is beyond reason, I tell thee, Diane."
"So said I at first," said Diane softly; "yet nevertheless it is truth."
"Gwennola!" he echoed dreamily, as on the instant all the old childish days seemed to surge forward in his memory—"little Gwennola!"
He was seeing her, a tiny, lovely maiden of five innocent summers, being held up in his own strong young arms to kiss the forehead of his horse; and remembering how she turned from loving the black steed to fling a pair of soft, baby arms round his neck and kiss him again and again. Then other pictures stole back to him in the darkening room: pictures of the same child grown into a slim little maiden, beautiful as the flowers which bent their fair heads to the summer breezes; with great blue eyes which were always watching for father and brother, whom she must ever run to greet, if but for the excuse of slipping away from the embroidery frame and her mother's rebukeful eye. But at the last the pictures faded, shrivelling up before a poisoned breath—and Diana's voice rang in his ears, "Gwennola is a witch!"