“’Twas a bitter necessity, fairly forced upon her.  Tell me; had there been a spark of love for me in her heart, would she have treated me as the dust beneath her feet on that long infaring from the western mountains?  She never spoke a word to me, Dick, in all those weeks.”

“Which may prove no more than that you said or did something to cut her to the quick.  ’Twould be well in your way, Jack.  She is as sensitive as she should be, and you are blunter than I—­which is the worst I could say of you.”

“No, no; you are far beside the mark.  You forget that the breaking of the marriage is of her own proposing—­at least, I should say I only hinted at it.”

“There may be two sides to that, as well.  Have you ever told her that you love her, Jack?”

“Surely not!  I have been all kinds of a poltroon in this matter, as I have confessed, but this one thing I have not done.”

“Well,” said he, speaking slowly, as one who thinks the path out word by word, “what if she believes ’tis you who want your freedom?  What if you have made her that bitterest thing in all the world—­a woman scorned?”

I would not listen to him more.

“This is all the merest folly, Richard, as I will prove to you beyond the question of a doubt.  Do you mind that little interval in the Cherokees’ torture-play when they came to bind us afresh for the burning?”

“I mind no more of that horror-night than I can help.”

“Well, in that hour, when death was waiting for all three of us, she wrote a little farewell note to the man she loved.  ’Twas for you, Dick, but her Indian messenger blundered and gave it me.”

He got upon his feet at that and began to pace slowly back and forth under the gloomy archings.  But ere long he paused to grasp and wring my hand most lovingly, saying, “Who am I, Jack, to buy my happiness at such a price?”

“Nay, lad; ’tis neither you nor I who should figure greatly in the matter; ’tis our dear lady.  She must e’en have what she longs for, if you, or I, or both of us, should have to go above stairs and put our necks into my Lord Cornwallis’s noose.”

“Now, by heaven, Jack Ireton, ’tis you who are the true lover and the gentleman; and I am naught but a selfish churl with my face in my own trencher!” he burst out, wringing my hand yet again. “’Tis as you say; yet I will not be driven from this; for aught you have told me to prove it otherwise, Madge has yet to choose between us, and she shall have that choice, fairly and squarely, and knowing that you love her, before we three go apart again.”

I smiled, and tried hard to keep the heart-soreness out of my reply.

“As for that, my lad, I have had my stirrup-cup long since, and have drained it to the dregs with a wry face, as an old man must when a young man brews for him.  But if the priest—­”

Jennifer had resumed his pacing sentry beat, and at this juncture a most singular thing happened.  Though we were sealed in, as I have said, from all the outer world with no crack nor cranny for a peephole, a blinding flash of lightning, blue and ghastly, came suddenly to fill the whole cellar with its vivid glare.