Even in that light I could see her lips go ashen, and for a moment I thought she would drop. I sprang to catch her, but she recovered, and shrank in a kind of speechless fury from my touch. Then she found words for me, dreadful words for me to hear:
“Traitor! Assassin! Still you to persecute and thwart me. It is you they fear. It is you who plan the murder of that good and true man—you who will not let me go to warn him!” Then her voice broke into a wilder, more beseeching tone: “Oh, if you have one spark of shame, remember! Let them push off the boat; and let me go, that I may try to save him!”
Her reproaches hurt me not, but what seemed her passion for him steadied me and made me hard.
“You are mad, mademoiselle!” I answered sternly. “I am going to save him.”
“As you have saved our house to-night!” she cried, with a laugh that went through me like a sword.
“I was outwitted by my enemies—and yours, mademoiselle. I go now to warn him. Push down the boat, men. Haste! Haste!” I ordered, turning from her.
But she came close in front of me, her great eyes blazed up in my face, and she cried, “You go to see that he does not escape your hate!”
“Listen, mademoiselle,” I said sharply. “I swear to you by the mother of God that you have utterly misjudged me! I am no traitor. I have been a fool; or my sword would have been at your father’s side to-night. I swear to you that I go now to expiate my mistake by saving your lover for you.”
The first wave of doubt as to my treason came into her eyes at this; but her lips curled in bitter unbelief. Before she could speak, I went on:
“I swear to you by—by the soul of my dead mother I will save George Anderson or die fighting beside him! You shall have your lover,” I added, as I stepped toward the boat, which was now fairly afloat on the swirling current. Nicole was hoisting the sail, while one of the fishermen held the boat’s prow.