"It is false! Yesterday I thought of you as a gallant gentleman, greatly wronged ... and I pitied you. To-day I am wiser."
He held her eyes with his own for a moment, then let them go. "Some day you will know," he said.
She turned from him and held out her hands to Sir Charles. He hurried to her and she clung to him. "Take me away," she said in a whisper. "Take me home."
He put his arm about her. "You are faint," he said tenderly. "Come! the air will revive you."
Supporting her on his arm, he guided her from the house. As they passed the body stretched across the threshold, the skirt of her robe touched the blood in which it was lying. She saw it and shuddered.
"Blood is upon me!" she said. "It is an omen!"
"A good one, then," said her companion coolly, "for it is the blood of a fanatic traitor. Think not of it." He turned at the threshold and cast a careless glance back into the tobacco house. "Woodson, get rid of this carrion, and bring these men quietly to the great house, where your master will deal with them."