But I was rude in my trouble.
“Why have you fled from me, mademoiselle?” I interrupted passionately. “Why have you left your own home in this way? I will leave it at once—for you shall not be driven from it.”
“My home, monsieur? It is your house. I will not be a pensioner on your bounty.”
How had she found this out? I was in confusion.
“What—what do you mean, mademoiselle?” I stammered.
“I mean, monsieur,” she said, with ice and fire contending in her voice, “that all these days, when I thought I was playing the hostess, in a home belonging either to my brother or to the English Government, I have been but a beggar living on your charity. I know that you are the owner of Cheticamp House and all in it, it having been taken from us to give to you.”
I was in despair over this further complication; but this was not the time for finding out the betrayer of my secret.
“I had hoped that you would never know, mademoiselle,” I protested. “But it is not of that I would speak. Forgive me, I beg you on my knees, for the stupid mistake, the unpardonable mistake I made this morning. And oh, count it something that I did my best to remedy the error, so that no harm came of it.”
The anger that flamed into her eyes was of a beauty that did not delight me.
“Doubtless you did your duty, monsieur, as a servant of your Government. Doubtless honour required that you should betray the trust so foolishly reposed in you by a silly girl. You would have taken my brother, and through his sister’s folly. I cannot feel any very keen gratitude for the generosity which suffered my fiancé, whom you did not seek, to go free.”