he forgot her
quite ... but ... you ... you remember now, Martin--O, you remember
now?" says she with a great sob.

"Aye, I remember now!" quoth I, hoarsely.

"It is for the sake of this boy, Martin, so brave, so strong, yet so
very gentle and kindly--for him and all he might have been that I pray
you forego your vengeance--I beseech you to here renounce it--"

"Never!" I cried, clenching my shackled hands. "But for my enemy this
boy might now be as other men--'stead of outcast rogue and scarred
galley-slave, he might have come to love and win love--to have known
the joy of life and its fulness! Howbeit he must go his way, rogue and
outcast to the end."

"No!" she cried, "No! The wrong may be undone--must--shall be--wounds
will heal and even scars will fade with time."

"Scars of the body, aye--belike!" said I, "But there be scars of the
mind, wounds of the soul shall never heal--so shall my just vengeance
sleep not nor die whiles I have life!"

Here for awhile she was silent again and I saw a tear fall sparkling.

"And yet," said she at last and never stirring from her humble posture,
"and yet I have faith in you still for, despite all your cruel wrongs
and grievous suffering, you are so--young, headstrong and wilful and
very desolate and forlorn. Thus whiles I have life my faith in you
shall sleep not nor die, yet greatly do I pity--"

"Pity?" says I fiercely, "You were wiser to hate and see me hanged out
of hand."

"Poor soul!" she sighed, and rising, laid one white hand upon my
shackled fist. "And yet mayhap you shall one day find again your sweet
and long-lost youth--meanwhile strive to be worthy a sorrowing maid's
honest pity."

"Pity?" says I again, "'Tis akin to love--so give me hate, 'tis thing
most natural 'twixt your blood and mine."

"Poor soul!" she repeated, viewing me with her great, calm eyes albeit
their lashes were wet with tears, "How may I hate one so wretched?"
Here, seeing mayhap how the words stung me she must needs repeat them:
"Poor wretched soul, thou'rt far--far beneath my hate."

"Belike you'll come to learn in time!" says I, beside myself. At this
I saw the white hand clench itself, but her voice was tender as ever
when she answered:

"Sorrow and suffering may lift a man to greatness if he be strong of
soul or debase him to the brute if he be weak."

"Why then," says I, "begone to your gallants and leave me to the
brutes."

"Nay, first will I do that which brought m