“Nay, I did not say I blamed you,” she returned, gaily—­ “but the fact is, you had left me so long to ruminate here alone, that I have fallen into a mood argumentative, or philosophical—­whichsoever you may be pleased to term it—­and I am willing to maintain my position, that you might, by possibility, have been more guilty than the culprit at whom you aimed, had your shot destroyed him.”

The light tone in which Matilda spoke dispelled the seriousness which had begun to shadow the brow of the young Commander—­“And pray how do you make this good?” he asked.

“Suppose for instance, the slumberer you preserved had been a being of crime, through whom the hopes, the happiness, the peace of mind, and above all, the fair fame of the other been cruelly and irrevocably blasted.  Let us imagine that he had destroyed some dear friend or relative of him with whose vengeance you beheld him threatened.”

“Could that be—.”

“Or,” interrupted the American, in the same careless tone “that he had betrayed a wife.”

“Such a man—­”

“Or, what is worse, infinitely worse, sought to put the finishing stroke to his villainy, by affixing to the name and conduct of his victim every ignominy and disgrace which can attach to insulted humanity.”

“Matilda,” eagerly exclaimed the youth, advancing close to her, and gazing into her dark eyes; “you are drawing a picture.”

“No Gerald,” she replied calmly, “I am merely supposing a case.  Could you find no excuse for a man acting under a sense of so much injury?—­would you still call him an assassin, if, with such provocation, he sought to destroy the hated life of one who had thus injured him?”

Gerald paused, apparently bewildered.

“Tell me, dearest Gerald,” and her fair and beautiful hand caught and pressed his—­“would you still bestow upon one so injured the degrading epithet of assassin?”

“Assassin!—­most undoubtedly I would.  But why this question, Matilda?”

The features of the American assumed a changed expression; she dropped the hand she bad taken the instant before, and said, disappointedly: 

“I find, then, my philosophy is totally at fault.”

“Wherein, Matilda?” anxiously asked Gerald.

“In this, that I have not been able to make you a convert to my opinions.”

“And these are—?” again questioned Gerald, his every pulse throbbing with intense emotion.

“Not to pronounce too harshly on the conduct of others, seeing that we ourselves may stand in much need of lenity of judgment.  There might have existed motives for the action of him whom you designate as an assassin, quite as powerful as those which led to your interference, and quite as easily justified to himself.”

“But, dearest Matilda—­”

“Nay, I have done—­I close at once my argument and my philosophy.  The humour is past, and I shall no longer attempt to make the worse appear the better cause.  I dare say you thought me in earnest,” she added, with slight sarcasm, “but a philosophical disquisition between two lovers on the eve of parting for ever, was too novel and piquant a seduction to be resisted.”