I held up my hand. “Nay,” I said, “there is no virtue in that plea; I do not make it. I am your husband, madame!”
She gave me a strange look.
The prince turned to her again. “You have ever spoken the truth,” he said, in a hard voice. “I acquit you of fault in this; but has he guarded you, and treated you as becomes a princess, and my daughter?” His tone was terrible.
“I have been safe as with you, my father,” she replied, and her voice broke a little.
The prince called a serf. “Take the horse of the princess and lead her ahead of me back to Troïtsa,” he said, and then to me: “Sir, if she had testified against you, I would have had you hanged!”
“M. le Prince,” I replied coldly, “I am a Frenchman and a man of honour. Try me not too far, monsieur; even though you are her father, there are some things you may not say to me. Neither can you compel her to leave her husband—unless she wills it.”
He looked at me with disdain and laughed.
“Her husband!” he repeated. “As little her husband, Sir Frenchman, as that moujik in the field yonder,” and he signalled to his serfs to turn back to Troïtsa.
But I rode beside the carriage and looked into his face, and proud as he was, I saw him colour darkly.
“M. le Prince,” I said, “I am not the man to be thus lightly dealt with. If she wishes to be free—I will free her. No woman is my wife against her will; but if she chooses me of her free will, mine she is, and shall be, against the world.”