"Yes, but it is so hopeless. Let us leave it, mother."
"No. I said we must clear our souls. Leave nothing untold. What is it?"
"The man Carteaux! If it had not been for you, I should never have left France until I found that man."
"I thought as much. Had you told me, I should have stayed, or begged my bread in England while you were gone."
"I could not leave you then, and now—now the sea lies between me and him, and the craving that has been with me when I went to sleep and at waking I must put away. I will try." As he spoke, he took her hand.
A rigid Huguenot, she had it on her lips to speak of the forgiving of enemies. Generations of belief in the creed of the sword, her love, her sense of the insult of this death, of a sudden mocked her purpose. She was stirred as he was by a passion for vengeance. She flung his hand aside, rose, and walked swiftly about, getting back her self-command by physical action.
He had risen, but did not follow her. In a few minutes she came back through the darkness, and setting a hand on each of his shoulders said quietly: "I am sorry—the man is dead to you—I am sorry you ever knew his name."
"But I do know it. It is with me, and must ever be until I die. I am to try to forget—forget! That I cannot. The sea makes him as one dead to me; but if ever I return to France—"