“Did you think I knew?” she stammered. “Did you think I could do that? They told me at the usine that you had gone away—I thought you had forgotten—that you did not care—”
“Care!” he groaned, and bowed his head, crushing her hands over his face.
Then she broke down, breathless with terror and grief. 359
“I was not a spy then—truly I was not, Kelly. There was no harm in me—I only—only asked for the sketches because—because—I cared for you. I have them now; no soul save myself has ever seen them—even afterward, when I drifted into intrigue at the Embassy—when everybody knew that Bismarck meant to force war—everybody except the French people—I never showed those little sketches! They were—were mine! Kelly, they were all I had left when you went away—to a fortress!—and I did not know!—I did not know!”
“Hush!” he groaned. “It is all right—it is all right now.”
“Do you believe me?”
“Yes, yes. Don’t cry—don’t be unhappy—now.”
She raised her head and fumbled in her corsage with shaking fingers, and drew from her bosom a packet of papers.
“Here are the sketches,” she sobbed; “they have cost you dear! Now leave me—hate me! Let them come and take me—I do not want to live any more. Oh, what punishment on earth!”
Her suffering was unendurable to the man who had suffered through her; he turned on me, quivering in every limb.