“Had the soldiers seen you and taken you,” said she, in her eagerness forgetting her disguise, “he would have been able to claim me to-morrow. They may yet take you. Oh, go, go at once!”
“They shall not take me. Now that I know you love me, Yvonne,—for you have betrayed it,—my life is, next to yours, the most precious thing to me in the world. I go at once to Quebec to settle my affairs and prepare a home for you. Then I will come,—it will be but in a month or two, when this trouble is overpast,—and I will take you away.”
Her face, all her form, drooped with a sort of weariness, as if her will had been too long taxed.
“You will find me the wife of George Anderson,” she said faintly.
It was as if I had been struck upon the temples. My mouth opened, and shut again without words. First rage, then amazement, then despair, ran through me in hot surges.
“But—your promise—not till he could show me to you,” I managed to stammer.
“I gave it in good faith,” she said simply. “I can no longer hold him off by it, for I have seen you safe and well.”
“I am not safe, as you may soon see,” said I fiercely, “and not long shall I be well, as you will learn.” Then, perceiving that this was a sorry kind of threat, and little manly, I made haste to amend it.
“No, no,” I cried, “forget that! But stick to the letter of your promises, I beseech you. Why push to go back of that? Unless,” I added, with bitterness, “you want the excuse!”
She shuddered, and forgot to resent the brutality.