‘You blame me?’

’No, not at all.  It is a point I cannot speak on—­I am only a girl.  I am sure you were in the right:  I have always said so—­to Ronald.  Not, of course, to my aunt.  I am afraid I let her speak as she will.  You must not think me a disloyal friend; and even with the Major—­I did not tell you he had become quite a friend of ours—­Major Chevenix, I mean—­he has taken such a fancy to Ronald!  It was he that brought the news to us of that hateful Clausel being captured, and all that he was saying.  I was indignant with him.  I said—­I dare say I said too much—­and I must say he was very good-natured.  He said, “You and I, who are his friends, know that Champdivers is innocent.  But what is the use of saying it?” All this was in the corner of the room in what they call an aside.  And then he said, “Give me a chance to speak to you in private, I have much to tell you.”  And he did.  And told me just what you did—­ that it was an affair of honour, and no blame attached to you.  O, I must say I like that Major Chevenix!’

At this I was seized with a great pang of jealousy.  I remembered the first time that he had seen her, the interest that he seemed immediately to conceive; and I could not but admire the dog for the use he had been ingenious enough to make of our acquaintance in order to supplant me.  All is fair in love and war.  For all that, I was now no less anxious to do the speaking myself than I had been before to hear Flora.  At least, I could keep clear of the hateful image of Major Chevenix.  Accordingly I burst at once on the narrative of my adventures.  It was the same as you have read, but briefer, and told with a very different purpose.  Now every incident had a particular bearing, every by-way branched off to Rome—­and that was Flora.

When I had begun to speak I had kneeled upon the gravel withoutside the low window, rested my arms upon the sill, and lowered my voice to the most confidential whisper.  Flora herself must kneel upon the other side, and this brought our heads upon a level with only the bars between us.  So placed, so separated, it seemed that our proximity, and the continuous and low sounds of my pleading voice, worked progressively and powerfully on her heart, and perhaps not less so on my own.  For these spells are double-edged.  The silly birds may be charmed with the pipe of the fowler, which is but a tube of reeds.  Not so with a bird of our own feather!  As I went on, and my resolve strengthened, and my voice found new modulations, and our faces were drawn closer to the bars and to each other, not only she, but I, succumbed to the fascination, and were kindled by the charm.  We make love, and thereby ourselves fall the deeper in it.  It is with the heart only that one captures a heart.