So I replied:
"Seek not to fright me from vengeance, for I intend none! I did not come
to punish. I do not know why it is, but where you are not I cannot rest.
I am drawn to you as by some power of magic. I would be with you even in
hell! Spy, traitress that you are, I love you! Your dupe that I am, I
love you!" I went to where, with downcast eyes, she stood, and I caught
her hand and pressed it to my lips. "I make myself a jest, a thing for
laughter, do I not, kissing the hand that would slay me?"
She raised her eyes, and held out her hand towards the fire-place,
saying:
"The hand that I would thrust into the flame to save you from the
lightest harm!"
What? Now that I was here, now that my capture seemed certain, would she
pretend that she had not acted for La Chatre against me? She did not know
that I had met Pierre, and what he had confessed to me.
"Mock me as you will, mademoiselle!" said I.
"Mistrust me as _you_ will, monsieur! I tell you, I would not have you
undergo the smallest harm!"
"You well sustain the jest!"
"Before God," she answered, "I do not jest!"
There was in her voice a ring of earnestness that seemed impossible to be
counterfeit. Puzzled, I looked at her, trying to read her countenance.
"Yet," I said, presently, "you were a spy upon me!"
"I was, God pity me! Scourge me with rough words as you will; I merit
every blow!"
"And you came here to see La Chatre," I went on, "perhaps because you
feared discovery, perhaps because you thought your work of betrayal was
done" (for I thought that she may have known of the midnight march of the
governor's troops), "perhaps to finish that work!"
"Now you wrong me at last!" she cried.
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