“What right had you to be there?”
“I heard a cry, and was compelled to go to it.”
“’Tis impossible. I see. Your prying and my infirmity have brought this disgrace upon me.”
She burst into tears. Then, anger reviving, she went on through her sobs:
“Why did you not leave me where I suppose I fell? You had done enough to injure me by discovering my weakness, without rudely breaking my trance, and, after that, taking advantage of the consequences to bring me here.”
Now I found words. “Lady Alice, how could I leave you lying in the moonlight? Before the sun rose, the terrible moon might have distorted your beautiful face.”
“Be silent, sir. What have you to do with my face?”
“And the wind, Lady Alice, was blowing through the corridor windows, keen and cold, as if it were sister-spirit of the keen and cold moonlight. How could I leave you?”
“You could have called assistance.”
“I knew not whom I should rouse, if any one. And forgive me, Lady Alice, if I erred in thinking you would rather command the silence of a gentleman to whom an evil accident had revealed your secret, than be exposed to the domestics whom a call for help might have gathered round us.”