I was like a man who saw death before him when I heard his words. Lucille his wife, when but a few short months ago she had promised to be mine. She had let me woo and win her, knowing that she had no right--that I had no right!

“Oh God!” I cried; and then I stopped, for I did not know what I might pray for; her death, or his or my own. Yet with it all I loved her; more than ever.

A great grief or a great joy stuns for the moment. So it was with me. My heart’s dearest idol was shattered; crumbled into dust, and, instead of pain, there was a numbness and a feeling that I had never known before. I raised my hand to my head as if I would brush away cobwebs from my eyes.

“Lucille,” I began, in so strange a tone that I started at the word, and the silence seemed broken by my tone as by a thunder clap.

“Lady Keith,” corrected Sir George, smiling.

124There came to me a faint hope like a star dimly seen amid a storm sky. Perchance he had forfeited the right to call her wife. What else could mean her shrinking from him, her fear when they had met, and I had been near to see? Oh, if it could but be true! My eyes saw clearer, and my hand became firmer.

“I have no privilege to ask,” I began, yet I hoped for an answer, “but I had been led to believe otherwise of--of--Lu--of Lady Keith.”

“Aye, I suppose so,” was his answer, in a biting tone. “I am in little mood for the telling, yet I will relate how it came to pass; for there have been strange goings on since Mistress Lucille became Lady Keith.”

Then as we two stood there, each with deadly hatred of the other in his heart, he began:

“I met Lucille and fell in love with her some five years ago. I first saw her in Paris, where I had gone in quest of you. There I lingered unable, because of the witchery of her eyes, to leave. We met often, for I contrived to prevail on her father to let me give her lessons in English. And you may guess I lost no opportunity of giving her lessons in love at the same time. Well, my suit prospered, and in a year we were wed, both as happy as lovers proverbially are.

“Then one day, ’twas a small matter, to be sure, but there was a story that some court lady had been found in my bed chamber. Only a trifle, for she had been there to 125gain my friendship in a matter concerning some titled personage, and called rather early, that was all. But Lucille heard of it, and, as I could not deny that the lady was there, why, my wife assumed that I had tired of her charms. She flew into a great passion, and when I had imagined she would pout a bit, and seem offended, she was most grievously angered. Hast ever seen her in a temper?” he asked suddenly.

“No,” I said sharply. “Go on.”

“Oh, but she has one, for all her fair face,” he sneered.

It was all I could do to keep the point of my sword from his throat.

“Proceed,” I choked out.

“Well, this small matter to me proved a large one for Lady Keith. And her father, it seems, took it to heart also. They were of noble blood, the de Guilforts, almost as good as the Keiths,” and he stroked his moustache with an air of pride.

“Where was I? Oh, yes. Well, Mistress Keith was in a great temper. She defied me to my face; told me I had dishonored her. You know how women are. To be brief, M. de Guilfort, with my wife and her cousin, suddenly left Paris, when I had been called to London on a false report that you had come back. When I returned to Paris, expecting to find all the affair blown over, and a pair of loving arms and ruby lips to welcome me, I found a vacant house; a cold hearth.

126“I did my best to trace them but failed. Then, like a man without hope, hating yet loving, loving yet hating, I went to the wars, and finally came to America. And here, thanks to the fates I have found both my enemy and my love.”

“Is that all?” I asked, for I wished to hear the end before I killed him.

“No,” he said bitterly, “not all. When I became attached to the army of the Massachusetts Colony, the first act of Governor Phips was to send me with a message to you here. I little guessed who I should find Captain Edward Amherst to be, much less did I hope to meet with Lucille in Salem town.

“When I galloped to her house that night, not finding you at the inn, I saw, in the dim light, she whom I had been seeking so long. I had no eyes for you then beyond a glance. But when I had ridden a............