“Hush!  Take not His name upon your lips.  Men like you cannot afford to credit the existence of a holy God.  This is Christmas—­at least according to the almanac—­now as a ‘chivalrous Southern gentleman,’ will you grant me a very great favor if I humbly crave it?  Ah, noblesse oblige! you cannot deny me.  I beg of you, then, leave me instantly; come here no more.  Never let me see your face again, or hear your voice, except in the court-room, when I am tried for the crime which you have told the world I committed.  This boon is the sole possible reparation left you.”

She had clasped her hands so tightly, that the nails were bloodless, and the fluttering in her white throat betrayed the throbbing of her heart.

“You are afraid of me, because you dread my discovering your secret, which is—­”

“You have done your worst.  You have locked me away from a dying mother; disgraced an innocent life; broken a girl’s pure, happy heart; what else is there to dread?  Although a bird knows full well when it has received its death wound, instinct drives it to flutter, drag itself as far as possible from the gaze of the sportsman, and gasp out its agony in some lonely place.”

“When I hunt birds, and a partridge droops its wings, and hovers almost at my feet, inviting capture, I know beyond all peradventure that it is only love’s ruse; that something she holds dearer than her own life, is thereby screened, saved.  You are guilty of a great crime against yourself, you are submitting tacitly, consenting to an awful doom, in order to spare and protect the real murderer.”

He bent closer, watching breathlessly for some change in her white stony face; but her sad eyes met his with no wavering of the lids, and only her delicate nostrils dilated slightly.  She raised her locked hands, rested her lips a moment on her mother’s ring, as if drinking some needed tonic, and answered in the same low, quiet tone: 

“Then, prime minister of justice, set me free, and punish the guilty.  Who murdered General Darrington?”

“You have known from the beginning; and I intend to set you free, when that cowardly miscreant has been secured.  You would die to save your lover; you, proud, brave, noble natured, would sacrifice your precious life for that wretched, vile poltroon, who flees and leaves you to suffer in his stead!  Truly, there is no mystery so profound, so complex, so subtle as a woman’s heart.  To die for his crimes, were a happier fate than to sully your fair soul by alliance with one so degraded; and, by the help of God, I intend to snatch you from both!”

He had put his hands for an instant upon her shoulders, and his handsome face flushed, eloquent with the feeling that he no longer cared to disguise, was so close to hers, that she felt his breath on her cheek.