me, Margery."

She tossed her head and would not look at me. "Dick Jennifer is but a
boy; suppose this other were a man full-grown."

"Yes?"

"And a soldier."

The sickness in my heart became a fire.

"O Margery! Don't tell me it is this fiend who came just now!"

All in a flash the jesting mood was gone, but that which took its place
was strange to me. Tears came; her bosom heaved. And then she would have
passed me but I caught her hands and held them fast.

"Margery, one moment: for your own sweet sake, if not for Dick's or
mine, have naught to do with this devil's emissary of a man. If you only
knew--if I dared tell you--"

But for once, it seemed, I had stretched my privilege beyond the limit.
She whipped her hands from my hold and faced me coldly.

"Sir Francis says you are a brave gentleman, Captain Ireton, and though
he knows well what you would be about, he has not sent a file of men to
put you in arrest. And in return you call him names behind his back. I
shall not stay to listen, sir."

With that she passed again behind my chair, and once again I heard her
hand upon the latch. But I would say my say.

"Forgive me, Margery, I pray you; 'twas only what you said that made me
mad. 'Tis less than naught if you'll deny it."

I waited long and patiently, and thought she must have gone before her
answer came. And this is what she said:

"If I must tell you then;'tis now two weeks and more since Sir Francis
Falconnet asked me to marry him. I--I hope you do feel better, Captain
Ireton."

And with these bitterest of all words to her leave-taking, she left me
to endure as best I might the hell of torment they had lighted for me.

VI

SHOWING HOW RED WRATH MAY HEAL A WOUND

It was full two days after the coming of the baronet and the
factor-lawyer Pengarvin before I saw my lady's face near-hand again, and
sometimes I was glad for Richard Jennifer's sake, but oftener would
curse and swear because I was bound hand and foot and could not balk my
enemy.

I knew Sir Francis and the lawyer still lingered on at Appleby
Hundred--indeed, I saw them daily from my window--and Darius would be
telling me that they waited upon the coming of some courier from the
south. But this I disbelieved. Some such-like lie the baronet might have
told, I thought; but when I saw him walk abroad with Margery on his arm,
pacing back and forth beneath the oaks and bending low to catch her
lightest word with grave and cour