She whispered, still with her mouth against his cheek:
"See you well!—for the deliverance of my country, it is I who am going to throw that stone!"
He panted through the shuddering that had seized him:
"Do you know what will happen, whether you succeed or fail? You will be led out—placed with your back against—this wall perhaps—and shot!"
He felt her lips smile against his cheek as she answered:
"And what of that! It will be the fortune of War! But you..." She sharply drew her face away, and the slight hands thrust him from her. "I will have you leave this place to-night!"
A weakness seized him. He sank down upon his knees and stretched his arms out, in the darkness, to the dimly outlined silhouette of the slight elfin creature standing on the threshold, and the scents of rose and jasmine came to him in gusts from the night-veiled garden with another fragrance that had no name. He whispered, driven beyond himself:
"I will not go! I love you!"
She said:
"I have nothing to do with Love—who have consecrated myself to vengeance. And your presence here might ruin all.... He knows M. Breagh, the Englishman.... Have you not told me over and over that once he..."