me, a while ago. Indeed, I do not remember in all my life to have
felt so glad, as I feel just now, to be alive. Give me your gun, if
you please."

"I do not understand."

"No, you do not understand. . . . Your gun, please . . . nay, you can
lay it on the turf between us. The phial, too, that you offered your
brother. . . . Thank you. And now, my wife, let us talk of your
country and mine; two islands which appear to differ more than I had
guessed. In Corsica it would seem that, let a vile thing be spoken
against a woman, it suffices. Belief in it does not count: it
suffices that a shadow has touched her, and rather than share that
shadow, men will kill themselves--so tender a plant is their honour.
Now, in England, O Princess, men are perhaps even more irrational.
They, no more than your Corsicans, listen to the evidence and ask
themselves, 'Is this good evidence or bad? Do I believe it or
disbelieve?' They begin father back, Princess--Shall I tell you how?
They look in the face of their beloved, and they say, 'Slander this,
not as you wish for belief, but only as you dare; for here my faith
is fixed beforehand.'

"And therefore, O Princess," I went on, after a pause in which we
eyed one another slowly, "therefore, I disbelieve any slander
concerning you; not merely because your brother's confessor was its
author--though that, to any rational man, should be enough--but
because I have looked in your face. Therefore also I, your husband,
forbid you to speak what would dishonour us both."

"But, cavalier--if--if it were true?"

"True?"--I let out a harsh laugh. "Take up that phial. Hold it in
your hand, so. Now look me in the face and drink--if you dare!
Look me in the face, read how I trust you, and so, if you can say the
lie to me say it--and drink!"

She lifted the phial steadily, almost to her lips, keeping her eyes
on mine--but of a sudden faltered and let it fall upon the turf:
where I, whose heart had all but stood still, crushed my heel upon it
savagely.

"I cannot. You have conquered," she gasped.

"Conquered?" I swore a bitter oath. "O Princess, think you _this_
is the way I promised to conquer you? Take up your gun again and
follow me. . . . Eh? You do not ask where I lead?"

"It is enough that I follow you, my husband," she said humbly.

"It is something, indeed; but before God it is not enough, nor half
enough. I see now that 'enough' may never come: almost I doubt if I,
who s