"Then you are free to call it treason, are you, Margery?" I said.

She looked away from me again. "How can it well be less than treason?"
Then suddenly she turned and clasped her hands upon my knee. "You must
not be too hard upon me, Monsieur John. I've tried to do my duty as I
saw it, and I have asked no questions. And yet I know much more than you
have told me."

"What do you know?"

"I know your wound has been your safety. If you should leave this room
and house to-day you would never wear the buff and blue again, Captain
Ireton."

"You mean they would hang me for a spy. Will you believe me, Margery, if
I say I have not yet worn the buff and blue at all?"

"_Oh_!" The little exclamation was of pure delight. "Then they were all
mistaken? You are no rebel, after all?"

Was ever man so tempted since the fall of Adam? As I have writ it down
for you in measured words, I was no more than half a patriot at this
time. And love has made more traitors than its opposites of lust or
greed. In no uncertain sense I was a man without a country; and this
fair maiden on the hassock at my feet was all the world to me. I saw in
briefer time than any clock hands ever measured how much a yielding word
might do for me; and then I thought of Richard Jennifer and was myself
again.

"Nay, little one," I said; "there has been no mistake. For their own