"Why have you come here to tell me this?" he asked hoarsely. "Now that you have about accomplished your revenge, why do you warn me of the danger?"
It never occurred to her to wonder at his apparent knowledge of it all. She only cried out in an agony of remorse:
"Why, don't you understand without my telling you? Don't you see it all? I love you! Surely you know that. Surely you have read it from the beginning, even when I was so hideously unconscious. I have loved you from the first, best of all, and I love you now as it never seemed possible that any human thing could love. I would give my life, my very soul itself to undo this awful thing that I have done!"
"And yet you believe me guilty of this crime?"
"What right have I to judge you?" she cried, feverishly, endeavoring to remove her face from his gaze. "What do I know of your temptation? Oh, just God, it is that which has cursed me! I shut my eyes to the sweetest sentiment He ever put into a human soul, and set myself up to usurp His authority—to avenge! This is my punishment. See, Leith, I do not endeavor to conceal my face. I do not try to hide my shame. If you go to the gallows, I go too, for the crime is half mine. I have striven not to lose my reason during these last few, awful days when I was kept a prisoner in my own room, from which I have only now escaped in order that I might know all that was taking place, in order that I might die with you!"
"Wait, Carlita! You are speaking so wildly that I don't quite follow you. You say—"
"There isn't time!" she gasped. "There isn't time! They may be here at any moment, and you must make your escape before they come. I will find some means of throwing them off the track—of preventing their following you until your escape is assured. But you must go at once—at once!"
He looked at her curiously, a strange expression crossing his face.
"With you?" he asked.
"I will follow you, if you wish it!" she cried, desperately. "You can find some means of communicating with me—of letting me know where you are—and I swear I will come to you when you send."