became a daughter of her
line."

A murmur of assent went round the circle. The Governor, leaning forward
from his seat, his wife's hand in his, gravely bent his head. "All this
is known, lady," he said courteously.

She did not answer; her eyes were upon the King's favorite, and the
circle waited with her.

"It is known," said my lord.

She smiled proudly. "For so much grace, thanks, my lord," she said, then
addressed herself again to the Governor: "Your Honor, that is the past,
the long past, the long, long past, though not a year has gone by. Then
I was a girl, proud and careless; now, your Honor, I am a woman, and
I stand here in the dignity of suffering and peril. I fled from
England"--She paused, drew herself up, and turned upon my lord a face
and form so still, and yet so expressive of noble indignation, outraged
womanhood, scorn, and withal a kind of angry pity, that small wonder if
he shrank as from a blow. "I left the only world I knew," she said. "I
took a way low and narrow and dark and set with thorns, but the only way
that I--alone and helpless and bewildered---could find, because that I,
Jocelyn Leigh, willed not to wed with you, my Lord Carnal. Why did you
follow me, my lord? You knew that I loved you not. You knew my mind,
and that I was weak and friendless, and you used your power. I must
tell you, my lord, that you were not chivalrous, nor compassionate, nor
brave"--

"I loved you!" he cried, and stretched out his arm toward her across the
table. He saw no one but her, spoke to none but her. There was a fierce
yearning and a hopelessness in his voice and bent head and outstretched
arm that lent for the time a tragic dignity to the pageant, evil and
magnificent, of his life.

"You loved me," she said. "I had rather you had hated me, my lord. I
came to Virginia, your Honor, and men thought me the thing I professed
myself. In the green meadow beyond the church they wooed me as such.
This one came and that one, and at last a fellow, when I said him nay
and bade him begone, did dare to seize my hands and kiss my lips. While
I struggled one came and flung that dastard out of the way, then asked
me plainly to become his wife, and there was no laugh or insult in his
voice. I was wearied and fordone and desperate.... So I met my husband,
and so I married him. That same day I told him a part of my secret, and
when my Lord Carnal was come I told him all.... I had not met with much
true love or courtesy o