'Ay, but the day before!' he retorted. 'You saw me in the morning! You said nothing. In the evening I called at the Countess's lodgings; she would not see me. A mistake was it? Yes, but grant the mistake; was it kind, was it generous to withhold this? If I had been as remiss as she thought me, as slack a friend--was it just, was it womanly? In Heaven's name, no! No!' he repeated fiercely.
'We were taken up with the Waldgrave's peril,' I muttered, conscience-stricken. 'And yesterday, my lady----'
'Ay, yesterday!' he retorted bitterly. 'She would have told me yesterday. But why not the day before? The truth is, you thought much of your own concerns and your lady's kin, but of mine and my child--nothing! Nothing!' he repeated sternly.
And I could not but feel that his anger was justified. For myself, I had clean forgotten the child; hence my silence at my former interview. For my lady, I think that at first the Waldgrave's danger and later, when she knew of his safety, remorse for the part she had played, occupied her wholly, yet, every allowance made, I felt that the thing had an evil appearance; and I did not know what to say to him.
He sighed, staring absently before him. At last, after a prolonged silence, 'Well, it is too late now,' he said. 'Too late. The King moves out to-morrow, and my hands are full, and God only knows the issue, or who of us will be living three days hence. So there is an end.'
'My lord!' I cried impulsively. 'God forgive me, I forgot.'
He shrugged his shoulders with a grand kind of patience. 'Just so,' he said. 'And now, go back to your mistress. If I live I will answer her letter. If not--it matters not.'
I was terribly afraid of him, but my love for Marie had taught me some things; and though he waved me to the door, I stood my ground a moment.
'To you, my lord, no,' I said. 'Nothing. But to her, if you fall without answering her letter----'
'What?'he said.