cried between her teeth. 'And I would have you kill him!'

He shook his head. 'My good girl,' he said kindly, 'you are distraught.
You are not yourself. Or you would know a gentleman does not do
these things.'

'A gentleman!' she retorted, her smouldering rage flaming up at last.
'No; but I will tell you what he does. He kills a man to save his purse!
Or his honour! Or for a mis-word at cards! Or the lie given in drink! He
will run a man through in a dark room, with no one to see fair play! But
for drawing his sword to help a woman, or avenge a wrong, a gentleman--a
gentleman does not do these things. It is true! And may--'

'Oh, have done, have done, my dear!' cried a wailing, tearful voice; and
Sir George, almost cowed by the girl's fierce words and the fiercer
execration that was on her lips, hailed the intervention with relief.
The woman whom he had seen on her knees had risen and now approached the
girl, showing a face wrinkled, worn, and plain, but not ignoble; and for
the time lifted above the commonplace by the tears that rained down it.
'Oh, my lovey, have done,' she cried. 'And let the gentleman go. To kill
another will not help him that is dead. Nor us that are left alone!'

'It will not help him!' the girl answered, shrilly and wildly; and her
eyes, leaving Soane, strayed round the room as if she were that moment
awakened and missed some one. 'No! But is he to be murdered, and no one
suffer? Is he to die and no one pay? He who had a smile for us, go in or
out, and never a harsh word or thought; who never did any man wrong or
wished any man ill? Yet he lies there! Oh, mother, mother,' she
continued, her voice broken on a sudden by a tremor of pain, 'we are
alone! We are alone! We shall never see him come in at that door again!'

The old woman sobbed helplessly and made no answer; on which the girl,
with a gesture as simple as it was beautiful, drew the grey head to her
shoulder. Then she looked at Sir George. 'Go,' she said; but he saw that
the tears were welling up in her eyes, and that her frame was beginning
to tremble. 'Go! I was not myself--a while ago--when I fetched you. Go,
sir, and leave us.'

Moved by the abrupt change, as well as by her beauty, Sir George
lingered; muttering that perhaps he could help her in another way. But
she shook her head, once and again; and, instinctively respecting the
grief which had found at length its proper vent, he turned and, softly
lifting the latch, went out i