You appeal to my fears, and you do wrong. I have come to Scotland
with my eyes quite open to see you and to speak with you--it may be
for the last time. With my eyes quite open, I say; and if I did
not hesitate at the beginning do you think that I would draw back
now?'
'You do not know!' she cried, with rising agitation. 'This
country, even this garden, is death to you. They all believe it; I
am the only one that does not. If they hear you now, if they heard
a whisper--I dread to think of it. O, go, go this instant. It is
my prayer.'
'Dear lady, do not refuse me what I have come so far to seek; and
remember that out of all the millions in England there is no other
but yourself in whom I can dare confide. I have all the world
against me; you are my only ally; and as I have to speak, you have
to listen. All is true that they say of me, and all of it false at
the same time. I did kill this man Goguelat--it was that you
meant?'
She mutely signed to me that it was; she had become deadly pale.
'But I killed him in fair fight. Till then, I had never taken a
life unless in battle, which is my trade. But I was grateful, I
was on fire with gratitude, to one who had been good to me, who had
been better to me than I could have dreamed of an angel, who had
come into the darkness of my prison like sunrise.
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