"Yes, I know," he answered. "I know that the perils of this night had driven from your mind several things. For a little while you have thought of, and treated me, as an equal, have you not? You could not have been more gracious to,—let us say, to Sir Charles Carew. But now you have remembered what I am, a man degraded and enslaved, a felon,—in short, the criminal who, as you very justly say, should not be let to live."
She made no answer, and he rose to his feet.
"It is almost day, and the moon is shining brightly. You no longer fear the face in the dark? I will first waken the slaves, and then will push along the shore, and strive to discover where we are."
She looked at him with tears in her eyes. "Wait," she said, putting out a trembling hand. "I have hurt you. I am sorry. Who am I to judge you? And whatever you may have done, however wicked you may have been, to-night you have borne yourself towards a defenseless maiden as truly and as courteously as could have done the best gentleman in the land. And she begs you to forget her thoughtless words."
Landless fell upon his knee before her. "Madam!" he cried, "I have thought you the fairest piece of work in God's creation, but harder than marble towards suffering such as may you never understand! But now you are a pitying angel! If I swear to you by the honor of a gentleman, by the God above us, that I am no criminal, that I did not do the thing for which I suffer, will you believe me?"
"You mean that you are an innocent man?" she said breathlessly.
"As God lives, yes, madam."
"Then why are you here?"
"I am here, madam," he said bitterly, "because Justice is not blind. She is only painted so. Led by the gleam of gold she can see well enough—in one direction. I could not prove my innocence. I shall never be able to do so. And any one—Sir William Berkeley, your father, your kinsman—would tell you that you are now listening to one who differs from the rest of the Newgate contingent, from the coiners and cheats, the cut-throats and highway robbers in whose company he is numbered, only in being hypocrite as well as knave. And yet I ask you to believe me. I am innocent of that wrong."
The moonlight struck full upon his face as he knelt before her. She looked at him long and intently, with large, calm eyes, then said softly and sweetly:—