"Yes, she met me under the mulberries. I would not wait to rouse your father, but calling the overseers and the blacks from the fields, came at once."
"I owe you my life," she said. "You and—"
Her eyes left the summer outside and came back to the shadowy forms within the tobacco house. "I will go with you directly, cousin," she said quietly, "but first I wish to speak to that man."
He shot a swift glance at her face, but drew back with a bow, and she walked with a steady step up to Landless. "Fall back a little," she said with an imperious wave of her hand to the men about him. They obeyed her. Landless, left standing before her, his arms bound to his sides, raised his head and looked her in the face. She met his eyes. "You lied to me," she said in a low, even voice.
"Once, madam, and to save others," he said proudly.
"Not once, but twice. Do you think that now I believe that tale you told me that night, that fairy tale of persecuted innocence? When I think that I ever believed it I hate myself."
"Nevertheless, it is true, madam."
"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."