“Faith,” said I grimly, “it was asking too much, even for a Genoese!  Yet again I think you overrate their little trick, since, after all”—­I touched my own gunstock—­“there remains a third way—­the way chosen by young Odo of Rocca Serra.”

She put out a hand.  “Sir, that way you need not take—­if you will be patient and hear me!”

“Lady,” said I, “you may hastily despise me; but I am neither going to take that way, nor to be patient, nor to hear you.  But I am, as you invited me, going to be very frank and confess to you, risking your contempt, that I am extremely thankful the Genoese did not shoot me, a while ago.  Indeed, I do not remember in all my life to have felt so glad, as I feel just now, to be alive.  Give me your gun, if you please.”

“I do not understand.”

“No, you do not understand. . . .  Your gun, please . . . nay, you can lay it on the turf between us.  The phial, too, that you offered your brother. . . .  Thank you.  And now, my wife, let us talk of your country and mine; two islands which appear to differ more than I had guessed.  In Corsica it would seem that, let a vile thing be spoken against a woman, it suffices.  Belief in it does not count:  it suffices that a shadow has touched her, and rather than share that shadow, men will kill themselves—­so tender a plant is their honour.  Now, in England, O Princess, men are perhaps even more irrational.  They, no more than your Corsicans, listen to the evidence and ask themselves, ’Is this good evidence or bad?  Do I believe it or disbelieve?’ They begin father back, Princess—­Shall I tell you how?  They look in the face of their beloved, and they say, ’Slander this, not as you wish for belief, but only as you dare; for here my faith is fixed beforehand.’

“And therefore, O Princess,” I went on, after a pause in which we eyed one another slowly, “therefore, I disbelieve any slander concerning you; not merely because your brother’s confessor was its author—­though that, to any rational man, should be enough—­but because I have looked in your face.  Therefore also I, your husband, forbid you to speak what would dishonour us both.”

“But, cavalier—­if—­if it were true?”

“True?”—­I let out a harsh laugh.  “Take up that phial.  Hold it in your hand, so.  Now look me in the face and drink—­if you dare!  Look me in the face, read how I trust you, and so, if you can say the lie to me say it—­and drink!”

She lifted the phial steadily, almost to her lips, keeping her eyes on mine—­but of a sudden faltered and let it fall upon the turf:  where I, whose heart had all but stood still, crushed my heel upon it savagely.

“I cannot.  You have conquered,” she gasped.

“Conquered?” I swore a bitter oath.  “O Princess, think you this is the way I promised to conquer you?  Take up your gun again and follow me. . . .  Eh?  You do not ask where I lead?”

“It is enough that I follow you, my husband,” she said humbly.