Part 56 (1/2)
”But you,” he faltered in his ever-growing bewilderrievously, surely you should be the last to ask me such a question! Why, it is my intention to proceed with him as is the manner of the sea with all knaves taken as Oliver Tressilian was taken If your mood be merciful towards him--which as God lives, I can scarce conceive--consider that this is the greatest eance in a breath, Sir John” She was growing calriesture of iood purpose could it serve to take hiland?” he deone It were unnecessarily to torture hione as you suppose,” she replied ”And that trial is his right”
Sir John took a turn in the cabin, his wits all confused It was preposterous that he should stand and argue upon such ahiainst coes it, we'll not deny hi it best to huland if he demands it, and let him stand his trial there But Oliver Tressilian must realize too hat is in store for him to make any such demand” He passed before her, and held out his hands in entreaty ”Coht, you”
”I aht, Sir John,” she answered, and took the hands that he extended ”Oh, have pity!” she cried with a sudden change to utter intercession ”I implore you to have pity!”
”What pity can I show you, child? You have but to name”
”'Tis not pity forof you”
”For hiain
”For Oliver Tressilian”
He dropped her hands and stood away ”God's light!” he swore ”You sue for pity for Oliver Tressilian, for that renegade, that incarnate devil? Oh, you arehis arms
”I love him,” she said simply
That answer smote him instantly still Under the shock of it he just stood and stared at her again, his jaw fallen
”You love him!” he said at last below his breath ”You love hiade, the abductor of yourself and of Lionel, the man who murdered your brother!”
”He did not” She was fierce in her denial of it ”I have learnt the truth of that matter”
”From his lips, I suppose?” said Sir John, and he was unable to repress a sneer ”And you believed him?”
”Had I not believed him I should not have married him”
”Married him?” Sudden horror came now to temper his bewilder revelations? Had they reached the climax yet, he wondered, or was there still more to come? ”You married that infamous villain?” he asked, and his voice was expressionless
”I did--in Algiers on the night we landed there” He stood gaping at her whilst a ht count to a dozen, and then abruptly he exploded ”It is enough!” he roared, shaking a clenched fist at the low ceiling of the cabin ”It is enough, as God'shim, that would be reason and to spare You e within the hour”
”Ah, if you will but listen to me!” she pleaded
”Listen to you?” He paused by the door to which he had stepped in his fury, intent upon giving the word that there and then shouldOliver Tressilian before him, announce his fate to him and see it executed on the spot ”Listen to you?” he repeated, scorn and anger blending in his voice ”I have heard reay, Lord Henry Goade assures us, pausing here at long length for one of those digressions into the history of fae upon his chronicle ”They were,” he says, ”ever an ih so far as their judgment carried thement”
Sir John, as much in his earlier conant hour, certainly appears to justify his lordshi+p of that criticism There were a score of questions a man of perspicuity would not have asked, not one of which appears to have occurred to the knight of Arwenack If anything arrested him upon the cabin's threshold, delayed hi he had resolved upon, no doubt it was sheer curiosity as to what further extravagances Rosaht yet have it in her mind to utter
”This man has suffered,” she told hih hich he mocked that statement ”God alone knohat he has suffered in body and in soul for sins which he never coh me I know to-day that he did not murder Peter I know that but for a disloyal act of mine he would be in a position incontestably to prove it without the aid of any man I know that he was carried off, kidnapped before ever he could clear himself of the accusation, and that as a consequence no life reade which he chose Mine was the chief fault And I must make amends Spare hih His sallow face was flushed to a fla purple
”Not another word!” he blazed at her ”It is because I do love you--love and pity you from my heart--that I will not listen It seems I must save you not only from that knave, but from yourself I were false to my duty by you, false to your dead father and murdered brother else Anon, you shall thank ain he turned to depart