o the Palace with him. I was
mad for experience, for mystery; I wanted more than the ordinary share
of knowledge. I wanted to probe things. Yet I meant no wrong. I thought
then nothing of which I shall ever be ashamed. But I shall always be
ashamed because I knew him, because he thought that I--oh, if I were a
man, I should be glad that I had killed him, for the sake of all honest
women!"

He remained silent. His look was not upon her, he seemed lost in a
dream; but his face was fixed in trouble.

She misunderstood his silence. "You had the courage, the impulse to--to
do it," she said keenly; "you have not the courage to justify it. I will
not have it so.

"I will tell the truth to all the world. I will not shrink I shrank
yesterday because I was afraid of the world; to-day I will face it, I
will--"

She stopped suddenly, and another look flashed into her face. Presently
she spoke in a different tone; a new light had come upon her mind. "But
I see," she added. "To tell all is to make you the victim, too, of what
he did. It is in your hands; it is all in your hands; and I cannot speak
unless--unless you are ready also."

There was an unintended touch of scorn in her voice. She had been
troubled and tried beyond bearing, and her impulsive nature revolted
at his silence. She misunderstood him, or, if she did not wholly
misunderstand him, she was angry at what she thought was a needless
remorse or sensitiveness. Did not the man deserve his end?

"There is only one course to pursue," he rejoined quietly, "and that is
the course we entered upon last night. I neither doubted yourself nor
your courage. Thee must not turn back now. Thee must not alter the
course which was your own making, and the only course which thee could,
or I should, take. I have planned my life according to the word I gave
you. I could not turn back now. We are strangers, and we must remain so.
Thee will go from here now, and we must not meet again. I am--"

"I know who you are," she broke in. "I know what your religion is; that
fighting and war and bloodshed is a sin to you."

"I am of no family or place in England," he went on calmly. "I come of
yeoman and trading stock; I have nothing in common with people of rank.
Our lines of life will not cross. It is well that it should be so. As
to what happened--that which I may feel has nothing to do with whether I
was justified or no. But if thee has thought that I have repented doing
what I did, let t