As she listened and gathered from his words the apprehension of a thing that had hitherto escaped her, her eyes grew wide in sudden horror.
“Is that to be the cost of my deliverance?” she asked him fearfully.
“I trust not,” he replied. “I have something in mind that will perhaps avoid it.”
“And save your own life as well?” she asked him quickly.
“Why waste a thought upon so poor a thing? My life was forfeit already. If I go back to Algiers they will assuredly hang me. Asad will see to it, and not all my sea-hawks could save me from my fate.”
She sank down again upon the divan, and sat there rocking her arms in a gesture of hopeless distress.
“I see,” she said. “I see. I am bringing this fate upon you. When you sent Lionel upon that errand you voluntarily offered up your life to restore me to my own people. You had no right to do this without first consulting me. You had no right to suppose I would be a party to such a thing. I will not accept the sacrifice. I will not, Sir Oliver.”
“Indeed, you have no choice, thank God!” he answered her. “But you are astray in your conclusions. It is I alone who have brought this fate upon myself. It is the very proper fruit of my insensate deed. It recoils upon me as all evil must upon him that does it.” He shrugged his shoulders as if to dismiss the matter. Then in a changed voice, a voice singularly timid, soft, and gentle, “it were perhaps too much to ask,” said he, “that you should forgive me all the suffering I have brought you?”
“I think,” she answered him, “that it is for me to beg forgiveness of you.”
“Of me?”