listened to me!
I did my best for him, sir; started off to call up the other man, who
was on the other side of the ruins, as soon as I saw his danger, but
when I came back----"

"The birds were flown, of course," interrupted Rupert with a sneer,
"and you found the body of your comrade who had been dastardly
wounded, and who, I hear, is dead now. So the villain has twice
escaped you. Cousin Madeleine," hastily breaking off to advance to the
girl, who now awakening from her reflective mood seemed about to leave
the ruins, "Cousin Madeleine, are you going? Let me escort you back."

She slowly turned her blue eyes, burning upon him from her white face.
"Cousin Rupert, I do not want your company." Then she added in a
whisper, yet with a passion for which Rupert would never have given
her credit and which took him vastly by surprise, "I shall never
forgive you."

"My God, Madeleine," cried he, with genuine emotion, "have I deserved
this? I have had no thought but to befriend you, I have opened your
eyes to your own danger----"

"Hold your tongue, sir," she broke in, with the same repressed anger.
"Cease vilifying the man I love. All your aspersions, your wordy
accusations will not shake my faith in him. _Mon Dieu_," she cried,
with an unsteady attempt at laughter, looking under her lashes and
tilting her little white round chin at Mr. Hobson, who, now seated
upon a large stone, and with an obtrusive quid of tobacco bulging in
an imperfectly shorn cheek, was mopping his forehead with a doubtful
handkerchief. "_That_ is the person, I suppose, whose testimony I am
to believe against my Jack!"

"Your Jack was prompt enough in running away from him, such as he is,"
retorted her cousin bitterly. He could not have struck, for his
purpose, upon a weaker joint in her poor woman's armour of pride and
trust.

She caught her breath sharply, as if indeed she had received a blow.
"Well, say your say," she exclaimed, coming to a standstill and facing
him; "I will hear all that you and your--your friend have to say,
lest," with a magnificent toss of her head, "you fancy I am afraid, or
that I believe one word of it all. I know that Jack--that Captain
Smith, as he is called--is engaged upon a secret and important
mission; but it is one, Rupert, which all English gentlemen should
wish to help, not impede."

"Do you know what the mission is--do you know to whom? And if, my fair
cousin, it is such that all English gentlemen would help,