,
as he had the best of right to think, to love her, and to suffer the
keenest pangs a heart can know. Then you must remember he did not know
even the best side of the matter, bad as it was, but saw only the
naked fact, that in recompense for his great help in time of need,
Mary had deliberately allowed him to lie in that dungeon a long,
miserable month, and would have suffered him to die. So it was no
wonder his heart was filled with bitterness toward her. Jane and I had
remained near the door, and poor Mary was a pitiable princess,
standing there so full of doubt in the middle of the room. After a
moment she stepped toward the window, and, with quick-coming breath,
stopped at the threshold of the little passage.

"Master Brandon, I have come, not to make excuses, for nothing can
excuse me, but to tell you how it all happened--by trusting to
another."

Brandon arose, and marking the place in his book with his finger,
followed Mary, who had stepped backward into the room.

"Your highness is very gracious and kind thus to honor me, but as our
ways will hereafter lie as far apart as the world is broad, I think it
would have been far better had you refrained from so imprudent a
visit; especially as anything one so exalted as yourself may have to
say can be no affair of such as I--one just free of the hangman's
noose."

"Oh! don't! I pray you. Let me tell you, and it may make a difference.
It must pain you, I know, to think of me as you do, after--after--you
know; after what has passed between us."

"Yes, that only makes it all the harder. If you could give your
kisses"--and she blushed red as blood--"to one for whom you care so
little that you could leave him to die like a dog, when a word from
you would have saved him, what reason have I to suppose they are not
for every man?"

This gave Mary an opening of which she was quick enough to take
advantage, for Brandon was in the wrong.

"You know that is not true. You are not honest with me nor with
yourself, and that is not like you. You know that no other man ever
had, or could have, any favor from me, even the slightest. Wantonness
is not among my thousand faults. It is not that which angers you. You
are sure enough of me in that respect. In truth, I had almost come to
believe you were too sure, that I had grown cheap in your eyes, and
you did not care so much as I thought and hoped for what I had to
give, for after that day you came not near me at all. I know it