"Four?"
"Yes, he had used two in his escape from the officers—before he came here."
"I see! It was horrible. I felt as if I had failed you at the critical moment, just as I failed—"
"As you failed whom?"
"Martel!" The word sounded in his ears with a terrible significance; he could hardly realize that he had spoken it. He had always meant to tell her, of course, but the moment had taken him unawares. His conscience, his inmost feeling, had found a voice apart from his volition. There was a little silence. At length she said in a low, constrained tone.
"Did you fail—him?"
"I—I did," he said, chokingly; and, the way once opened, he made a full and free confession of his craven fear that night on the road to Terranova, told her of the inherent cowardice which had ever since tortured and shamed him, and of his efforts to reconstruct his whole being. "I wanted to expiate my sin," he finished, "and, above all, I have longed to prove myself a man in your sight."
She listened with white, set face, slightly averted. When she turned to him at last, he saw that her eyes were wet with tears.
"I cannot judge of these matters," she said. "You—you were no coward the other night, amico mio. You were the bravest of the brave. You saved my life. As for that other time, do not ask me to turn back and judge. You perhaps blame yourself too much. It was not as if you could have saved Martel. It is rather that you should have at least tried—that is how you feel, is it not? You had to reckon with your own sense of honor. Well, you have won your fight; you have become a new person, and you are not to be held responsible for any action of that Norvin Blake I knew in Sicily, who, indeed, did not know his own weakness and could not guard against it. Ever since I met you here in New Orleans I have known you for a brave, strong man. It is splendid—the way in which you have conquered yourself—splendid! Few men could have done it. Be comforted," she added, with a note of tenderness that answered the pleading in his eyes—"there is no bitterness in my heart."
"Margherita," he cried, desperately, "can't you—won't you—"