Will Gordon groaned inarticulately from the settle. He had not been present at the time, but he knew well that with women such a transparent subterfuge would avail him nothing.
"Why, Maisie," he began, speaking from the depths of the pillow, "did not you yourself—"
"I do not think," said Barra, looking over to Will, "that your wife understands that the Hostel of the Coronation is, of all the haunts of sin in this city of Amersfort, the vilest and the worst. The man who would make his good name a byword there is certainly unfit to have the honor of admission into a circle so gracious, into society so pure as that in which I first found him. I speak as the censor of the morals of the army, and also as one who has suffered many things for conscience' sake and in order to deserve the praise of them that do well."
Kate looked up for the first time since Will and Barra had come in.
As the latter finished speaking he noticed that her eyes were very dark, and yet at the same time very bright. The black of the pupil had overspread the iris so that the whole eye at a distance appeared as dark as ink, but deep within the indignant light of a tragic love burned steadily, like a lamp in the night.
The girl spoke quickly and clearly, as if the words had been forced from her.
"Had I been so used at the only place I called 'home,' when I was a stranger in a strange land, I tell you all I should have gone straight to the Hostel of the Coronation—or worse, if worse might be!" she cried, indignantly.
"And so also would I!" cried Maisie, with still greater emphasis, sticking her needle viciously into the table and breaking it as she spoke.
The settle creaked as Will Gordon leaped to his feet.
"Silly women, ye ken not what ye say!" he said, sternly. "Be wise and plead rather with the man in whose hands our cousin's very life may lie, for the deeds of this black night."