"Sure?"

"Quite sure."

"I may have relatives who are sailors."

"You may have, but you haven't."

I considered for a moment.

"It was purely a matter of responsibility, you know. I felt that I had
something to do with your going away. I was disagreeable last night, and
you were offended. See?"

"Not a bit."

"You are very stupid."

"I am not now; I was last night."

"What do you mean?"

"I will answer you by asking a question. Will you promise to reply to
it?"

"_Cela depend._ I won't be rash."

"Do you care for me--just a little?" he asked, tenderly but hopefully.

Oh, horrible! A vision seemed to float suddenly before my eyes. The
darkness faded away, to be replaced by a little whitewashed chamber in a
distant land. I saw an old man dying, with his eyes fixed upon me full
of mute reproach, his trembling fingers pointed at me with scorn, and
his lips framing a feeble curse. Suddenly his look changed, his arm
fell, his face grew suddenly bright and joyful, and the curse changed
into a fervent blessing. Then the room widened, and the little figure
under that spotless coverlet faded away. It was a chamber in a palace,
and I saw Lady St. Maurice, also on her death-bed. Her husband and her
son knelt by her side with bared heads, and the air was laden and heavy
with the sound of their sobs. She alone did not weep, and her pale,
spiritualized face glowed like the face of a martyred saint. And as I
watched I seemed to hear one word constantly escaping from those who
watched by her side, and caught up and echoed a thousand times by the
sad wailing wind until it rang in my ears unceasingly--and the word was
"Murderess!"

It passed away--vanished in a phantom of mist, like some weird morbid
fancy, but the joy of those last few minutes was quenched. I drew myself
from his arms, and pressed my hand to my side. There was a sharp pain
there.

"We must go back to the house," I said. "I have been a little mad, I
think, and I am very wet."

He looked at me, amazed.

"Won't you answer my question first?" he pleaded. "Margharita, make me
very happy. Be my wife."

His wife. Oh, the grim grotesque agony of it all. My strength would
never be sufficient to carry me through all this. My heart was faint,
and my speech was low; yet it was as cold and resolute as I could make
it.

"Never! never! I would sooner die than that. Let us go back at once--at
once!"

He caught me by the wrist, and forced me to look into h