“You told her nothing more?”
“No.”
“May I ask why?”
He threw back his head. “I did not believe the Paspaheghs would trouble her,” he answered, with hardihood, “and you hadn’t seen fit, sir, to tell me of the other danger. Madam wanted to go, and I thought it a pity that she should lose her pleasure for nothing.”
I had been hunting the day before, and my whip yet lay upon the table. “I have known you for a hardy rogue,” I said, with my hand upon it; “now I know you for a faithless one as well. If I gave you credit for all the vices of the soldier, I gave you credit also for his virtues. I was the more deceived. The disobedient servant I might pardon, but the soldier who is faithless to his trust——”
I raised the whip and brought it down again and again across his shoulders. He stood without a word, his face dark red and his hands clenched at his sides. For a minute or more there was no sound in the room save the sound of the blows; then my wife suddenly cried out: “It is enough! You have beaten him enough! Let him go, sir!”
I threw down the whip. “Begone, sirrah!” I ordered. “And keep out of my sight to-morrow!”
With his face still dark red and with a pulse beating fiercely in his cheek, he moved slowly toward the door, turned when he had reached it and saluted, then went out and closed it after him.
“Now he too will be your enemy,” said Mistress Percy, “and all through me. I have brought you many enemies, have I not? Perhaps you count me amongst them? I should not wonder if you did. Do you not wish me gone from Virginia?”
“So I were with you, madam,” I said bluntly, and went to call the minister down to supper.