"Why, then, did you leave Avalon, if it was not fear that drove you?" drawled Laval, his eyes a mere slit in the face, drawn and white.
The utter baseness and conceit in the speaker's nature were so plainly revealed in his utterance that Tristan replied contemptuously:
"It was not fear of you, my lord, but the Lady Hellayne's expressed desire that brought me to Rome."
"The Lady Hellayne's desire? Then it was she who feared for you?"
"It was not fear for my body, but my soul."
"Your soul? Why your soul?"
"Because my love for her was a wrong to you, my lord,—even though I loved her but in thought."—
"On that night in the garden—you embraced in thought?"
The leer had deepened on the speaker's face.
"A resistless something impelled—"