loved her from the first; how I should
go on loving her to the end. So for a moment I hung trembling on the
brink; and then she pushed me over.

"Is this how you would do, Monsieur--Monsieur Ogre?--sit stock still and
glower at the poor thing as if you were between two minds as to loving
her or eating her?"

I bent quickly, took her face between my hands and kissed her
twice--thrice.

"That is what I should do. Now that you have made me what I was not
before, are you satisfied?"

'Twas long before she gave me a word. And when she spoke it was only to
say: "Are you not most monstrous ashamed, Monsieur John?"

"No!" said I. "I am but a man, and you have roused that part of me that
knows neither shame nor remorse. I love you, Mistress Margery; do you
hear? I have loved you since that day in June when I came back from
death's door to find you sitting here to bear me company."

She locked her fingers across her knee and would not look at me.

"But by your own showing you should be ashamed, sir," she insisted.
"What of the dear friend to whom you would give up even the love of your
mistress?"

"You may flay me as you will; I shall neither flinch nor go back from my
word. You are mine, and I shall give you up to no man. I know I have not
your love--shall never have it. Also, I know that I have gained an enemy
where once I had a loving friend. Richard Jennifer may kill me if he
please--he shall have the chance to do it; but you are mine and shall be
whilst I live to claim and hold you."

There was something less than anger in the blue-gray eyes when she let
me see them; nay, I could have sworn there was a flash of playful
mockery in them when she said: "Dear heart! how masterful rough you
have grown, all in a moment, my Lord." And then the beautiful eyes
filled and she said, "Poor Dick!" in a way to make me suffer all the
torments of that old myth-king who could never quaff the water that was
ever rising to his lips.

"Aye, you may love him, if you must and will," I gloomed. "God pity me!
I know you do love him."

She looked up quickly. "So you have said a dozen times before. Tell me,
Monsieur Oracle, how do you know it?"

"If I tell you, you will hate me more than you do now."

"That would be hard, indeed," she murmured. "Yet I would hear you say
it."

"Listen, then: once, when we three were at the very door and threshold
of death, you wrote the cry of your heart out on a bit of paper for a
leave-taking and