by two and a half for a woman's
confession. We have to trust to her for some of the debts of honour. See
her in the morning. No one masters her but you. Mind, the first to be
clear of must be St. Ombre. I like the fellow; but these Frenchmen--they
don't spare women. Ambrose,'--the earl's eyelids quivered. 'Jealousy
fired that shot. Quite groundless. She 's cool as a marble Venus, as you
said. Go straight from her house to Esslemont. I don't plead a case. Make
the best account you can of it. Say--you may say my eyes are opened. I
respect her. If you think that says little, say more. It can't mean more.
Whatever the Countess of Fleetwood may think due to her, let her name it.
Say my view of life, way of life, everything in me, has changed. I shall
follow you. I don't expect to march over the ground. She has a heap to
forgive. Her father owns or boasts, in that book of his Rose Mackrell
lent me, he never forgave an injury.'

Gower helped the quotation, rubbing his hands over it, for cover of his
glee at the words he had been hearing. 'Never forgave an injury without a
return blow for it. The blow forgives. Good for the enemy to get it. He
called his hearty old Pagan custom "an action of the lungs" with him. And
it's not in nature for injuries to digest in us. They poison the blood,
if we try. But then, there's a manner of hitting back. It is not to go an
inch beyond the exact measure, Captain Kirby warns us.'

Fleetwood sighed down to a low groan.

'Lord Feltre would have an answer for you. She's a wife; and a wife
hitting back is not a pleasant--well, petticoats make the difference. If
she's for amends, she shall exact them; and she may be hard to satisfy,
she shall have her full revenge. Call it by any other term you like. I
did her a wrong. I don't defend myself; it 's not yet in the Law Courts.
I beg to wipe it out, rectify it--choose your phrase--to the very
fullest. I look for the alliance with her to . . .'

He sprang up and traversed the room: 'We're all guilty of mistakes at
starting: I speak of men. Women are protected; and if they're not,
there's the convent for them, Feltre says. But a man has to live it on
before the world; and this life, with these flies of fellows . . . I fell
into it in some way. Absolutely like the first bird I shot as a
youngster, and stood over the battered head and bloody feathers,
wondering! There was Ambrose Mallard--the same splintered
bones--blood--come to his end; and for a wom