ould I be of any use or
comfort to you if you dragged me away as these cruel men propose,
knowing that he who has all my heart is dying guiltless, and
thinking I have failed him!" and here she broke down in an agony of
weeping, as she felt the old power in his eyes that enforced
submission.

He marched up and down in a sort of passion. "Don't let me see you
weep for him! It makes me ready to strangle him with my own hands!"

A shout of 'Pilpignon!' at the door here carried him off, leaving
Anne to give free course to the tears that she had hitherto been
able to restrain, feeling the need of self-possession. She had very
little hope, since her affection for Charles Archfield seemed only
to give the additional sting of jealousy, 'cruel as the grave,' to
the vindictive temper Peregrine already nourished, and which
certainly came from his evil spirit. She shed many tears, and
sobbed unrestrainingly till the Bretonne came and patted her
shoulder, and said, "Pauvre, pauvre!" And even Hans looked in,
saying, "Missee Nana no cry, Massa Perry great herr--very goot."

She tried to compose herself, and think over alternatives to lay
before Peregrine. He might let her go, and carry to Sir Edmund
Nutley letters to which his father would willingly swear, while he
was out of danger in Normandy. Or if this was far beyond what could
be hoped for, surely he could despatch a letter to his father, and
for such a price she _must_ sacrifice herself, though it cost her
anguish unspeakable to call up the thought of Charles, of little
Philip, of her uncle, and the old people, who loved her so well, all
forsaken, and with what a life in store for her! For she had not
the slightest confidence in the power of her influence, whatever
Peregrine might say and sincerely believe at present. If there
were, more palpably than with all other human beings, angels of good
and evil contending for him, swaying him now this way and now that;
it was plain from his whole history that nothing had yet availed to
keep him under the better influence for long together; and she
believed that if he gained herself by these unjust and cruel means
the worse spirit would thereby gain the most absolute advantage. If
her heart had been free, and she could have loved him, she might
have hoped, though it would have been a wild and forlorn hope; but
as it was, she had never entirely surmounted a repulsion from him,
as something strange and unnatural, a feeling inv