After a moment she answered musingly:  “I believe you are right.  Noah had whipped up the horses, and we must have covered at least a hundred yards or more before I saw Master Hamilton’s face.  I fear I have committed a great sin against him, and this day came near committing a greater.  I was on the point of answering ‘yes’ to the lawyer’s question, when some motive prompted me to say ‘no,’ and to make false oath.  I wish I were dead.  I have wronged him cruelly, and you are to blame.”

The last sentence was purely feminine logic, which is always interesting but usually inaccurate.

She began to weep, and I took her hand to soothe her, as I asked gently:  “Tell me, Frances.  Tell me all your trouble.  Speak it out.  Let me be your other self.  Perhaps I can help you.”

After a long pause she began her pathetic story:  “I cannot blind myself to the truth.  It is because I cannot stop thinking of him.  The creatures that infest this court are but foils to show me that he is a man, even though he be a bad one, while they are mere imitations.  I have often heard you say bitingly that women do not hate wickedness in men as they should—­”

“I fear it is true,” I interrupted dolefully.

“I suppose it is,” she continued.  “And one might go further and say that no woman ever loved a man only because he was good.  Too often goodness is but the lack of courage to do wrong or the absence of temptation.  If a man has no qualities save goodness to recommend him, I fear he might go his whole life through not knowing a woman’s real love.  We are apt to turn from the nauseating innocuousness of the truly good and to thank God for a modicum of interesting sin.”

“I’m sorry to hear this philosophy from you, cousin, for it smacks of bitterness, and I regret to learn that you have not thrown off your love for Hamilton, though I have long suspected the truth.”

“Yes, yes, Ned, the truth, the truth!  I, too, am sorry.  But it can’t be helped, and I want to tell you all about it,” she said, clasping my arm.  “I—­I am almost mad about him!  The king and the courtiers are harmless.  It may be that my love exalts Master Hamilton and debases others by comparison, but it is as I say with me, and I fear it will ever be.  He may be bad, but he is strong, brave, and honest.  He is a man—­all man—­and I tell you, Baron Ned, a woman doesn’t look much further when she goes to give her love.”

My eyes were opening rapidly to qualities in my cousin that I had never suspected, so after a moment I asked in alarm:—­

“But surely you would not marry Hamilton?”