not bring myself to do it, and yet I thought it would go hard with me if
I should leave her still unwarned.

"If I should try to make you understand, you will be angry, as you were
before."

The wicker chair was close beside the table and she sat down. And when
she spoke she had her hands tight-clasped across her knee and would not
look at me.

"Is it--about--Sir Francis?"

"It is," said I, pausing once more upon the brink of full confession.

She waited patiently for me to speak further; waited and let me fight it
out in slow pacings up and down before her chair. Without, the night was
calm and still, and through the opened casement came the measured beat
of footfalls on the gravel where the outer sentry kept his watch beneath
the window. Within, the single candle battled feebly with the gloom and
lighted naught for me save my dear lady's face, pensive now and saintly
sweet as it had been that morning when I had dwelt upon it the while she
knew it not. And in the background stood the sleepy tire-woman, giving
no sign of life save now and then a tortured yawn behind her hand.

I think my lady must have known how hard it was for me to speak, for,
when the silence had grown overlong, she said, gently: "I bought these
flying minutes of the sentry, Monsieur John. Will you not use them?"

"If I should say the thing I ought to say, you'll think the minutes
dearly bought, I fear."