“I do.”
“And knew naught of it,” she insisted earnestly, “before or after?”
“I do.”
“I would have cut off my hand first!” she said.
“I believe it,” he answered sorrowfully.
Then they were both silent. And she wondered at herself. Why did she not hate him? Why did she not pour out on him the vials of her indignation? He had treated her badly, always badly. The wrong which she had done him in the first place, he had avenged by a gross insult to her womanhood. Then not satisfied with that, he had been quick to believe the worst of her. He had been violent to her, he had bullied her: and when he found that she was not to be wrung to compliance with his orders, he had degraded her to a public prison as if she had been the worst of her sex—instead of his kith and kin. Even now when his eyes were open to his injustice, even now when he acknowledged that he owed amends, he came to her with a few poor words, meagre, scanty words, a miserable “I am sorry, you are free.” And that was all. That was all!
And yet her rage drooped cold, her spirit seemed dead. The scathing reproaches, the fierce truths which had bubbled to her lips as she lay feverish on her prison-bed, the hot tears which had scalded her eyes, now that she might give them vent, now that he might be wounded by them and made to see his miserableness—were not! She stood mute and pale, wondering at the change, wondering at her mildness. And when he said meekly, “The chaise is ready, will you make your preparations?” she went to do his bidding as if she had done nothing but obey him all her life.
CHAPTER XXVI
A RECONCILIATION
When she had filled her band-box, and with a tearful laugh looked her last on the cell, she emerged from the yard. She found Captain Clyne awaiting her with his hand on the key of the prison gate. He saw her look doubtfully at the closed lodge-door; and he misread the look.
“I thought,” he said, “that you would wish to be spared seeing more of them. I have,” with a faint smile, “authority to open.”