“One moment, madam,” I said hoarsely; “I desire a word with you.”
“The desire is not reciprocal, sir,” she answered icily. “Permit me to pass.”
“Not until you have heard me, madam,” I cried desperately. “Even the greatest of criminals can claim so much right.”
“In that case,” she replied with bitter irony, “your claim is indisputable. Say on, sir. We are but two unarmed women here.”
For a moment, speechless, I stared at her, with the hot blood flushing to my face. How this woman hated me!
“Well, sir,” she cried impatiently, “have you nothing to say? No further insults for your prisoners?”
“Madam, madam!” I burst out passionately, “what have I done to you that you should hate me so?”
“Hate you?” she answered slowly, gazing at me with hard, cruel eyes. “I think that you mistake me, sir. You are too mean, too base a thing to hate. I loathe you!”
And as with bent head, to hide the pain her words caused me, I stood aside, without further notice, save, indeed, one pitying glance from Mistress Grace, they passed me by, and I heard their footsteps die away into the night.
Long I remained where they had left me, my brain a chaos, a tumult in my breast. The song of the nightingale still quivered on the peaceful air, and the moon rose high in the heavens, silvering the tops of the surrounding oaks and flinging the shadows of their twisted boles upon the grass. Yet still I lingered by the fountain, in nowise conscious of the flight of time, whilst the very leaves, whispering to the passing breeze, seemed but to mock me with the echo of my lady’s words. Presently my brain grew clearer. What was this woman to me that I should imagine that her words could wound me? Or what concern of mine the opinion that she held of me? ’Twas but a week or two at most, and Cleeve, its fortunes, and its mistress would but linger in my memory—a vanished dream. Or, at the most, the vision of my lady would shine athwart the pathway of my chequered life, like as a radiant star above my head shot suddenly across the lighted heavens and vanished in illimitable space.