“But your story, Madam, is most unusual.”

“Tell me, then, why should I be here?” burst out the girl.  “What is it to me?  Why should I care what the Lady Catharine says or does?  Why should I risk my own name to come of this errand in the night?  Now let me pass, for I shall leave you.”

Tho swift jealous rage of Mary Connynge was unpremeditated, yet nothing had better served her real purpose.  The stubborn nature of Law was ever ready for a challenge.  He caught her arm, and placed her not unkindly upon the chair.

“By heaven, I half believe what you say is true!” said he, as though to himself.

“Yet you just said ’twas false,” said the girl, her eyes flashing.

“I meant that what you add is true, and hence the first also must be believed.  Then you saw my message?”

“I did, since it so fell out.”

“But you did not read the real message.  I asked no aid of any one for my escape.  I but asked her to come.  In sheer truth, I wished but to see her.”

“And by what right could you expect that?”

“I asked her as my affianced wife,” replied John Law.

Mary Connynge stood an inch taller, as she sprang to her feet in sudden scorn and bitterness.

“Your affianced wife!” cried she.  “What!  So soon!  Oh, rare indeed must be my opinion of this Lady Catharine!”

“It was never my way to waste time on a journey,” said John Law, coolly.

“Your wife, your affianced wife?”

“As I said.”

“Yes,” cried Mary Connynge, bitterly, and again, unconsciously and in sheer anger, falling upon that course which best served her purpose.  “And what manner of affianced wife is it would forsake her lover at the first breath of trouble?  My God! ’tis then, it seems to me, a woman would most swiftly fly to the man she loved.”

John Law turned slowly toward her, his eyes scanning her closely from top to toe, noting the heaving of her bosom, the sparkling of her gold-colored eye, now darkened and half ready to dissolve in tears.  He stood as though he were a judge, weighing the evidence before him, calmly, dispassionately.

“Would you do so much as that, Mary Connynge?” asked John Law.

“I, sir?” she replied.  “Then why am I here to-night myself?  But, God pity me, what have I said?  There is nothing but misfortune in all my life!”

It was one rebellious, unsubdued nature speaking to another, and of the two each was now having its own sharp suffering.  The instant of doubt is the time of danger.  Then comes revulsion, bitterness, despair, folly.  John Law trod a step nearer.

“By God!  Madam,” cried he, “I would I might believe you.  I would I might believe that you, that any woman, would come to me at such a time!  But tell me—­and I bethink me my message was not addressed, was even unsigned—­whom then may I trust?  If this woman scorns my call at such a time, tell me, whom shall I hold faithful?  Who would come to me at any time, in any case, in my trouble?  Suppose my message were to you?”