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me, Margery." She tossed her head and would not look at me. "Dick Jennifer is but a boy; suppose this other were a man full-grown." "Yes?" "And a soldier." The sickness in my heart became a fire. "O Margery! Don't tell me it is this fiend who came just now!" All in a flash the jesting mood was gone, but that which took its place was strange to me. Tears came; her bosom heaved. And then she would have passed me but I caught her hands and held them fast. "Margery, one moment: for your own sweet sake, if not for Dick's or mine, have naught to do with this devil's emissary of a man. If you only knew--if I dared tell you--" But for once, it seemed, I had stretched my privilege beyond the limit. She whipped her hands from my hold and faced me coldly. "Sir Francis says you are a brave gentleman, Captain Ireton, and though he knows well what you would be about, he has not sent a file of men to put you in arrest. And in return you call him names behind his back. I shall not stay to listen, sir." With that she passed again behind my chair, and once again I heard her hand upon the latch. But I would say my say. "Forgive me, Margery, I pray you; 'twas only what you said that made me mad. 'Tis less than naught if you'll deny it." I waited long and patiently, and thought she must have gone before her answer came. And this is what she said: "If I must tell you then;'tis now two weeks and more since Sir Francis Falconnet asked me to marry him. I--I hope you do feel better, Captain Ireton." And with these bitterest of all words to her leave-taking, she left me to endure as best I might the hell of torment they had lighted for me. VI SHOWING HOW RED WRATH MAY HEAL A WOUND It was full two days after the coming of the baronet and the factor-lawyer Pengarvin before I saw my lady's face near-hand again, and sometimes I was glad for Richard Jennifer's sake, but oftener would curse and swear because I was bound hand and foot and could not balk my enemy. I knew Sir Francis and the lawyer still lingered on at Appleby Hundred--indeed, I saw them daily from my window--and Darius would be telling me that they waited upon the coming of some courier from the south. But this I disbelieved. Some such-like lie the baronet might have told, I thought; but when I saw him walk abroad with Margery on his arm, pacing back and forth beneath the oaks and bending low to catch her lightest word with grave and cour
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