"I would walk fifty on the chance of catching sight of you for five minutes in the distance," he said, "but not because I am idle. Work at the foundries and in the factory has been arduous and heavy. Rumour will have told you that some of our men have been troublesome...." She looked straight down into his eyes and said earnestly: "Those for whose sake you and yours became false to your King and to your caste are turning against you now, _mon cousin_. Yes! Rumour hath told me that." "And you have rejoiced?" "And I have rejoiced." "Because in your thoughts you still hate me?" "Because in my thoughts I condemn you as false to your country and false to your King." "But in your heart, Fernande," he said slowly, "in your heart you no longer hate me." "_Mon cousin_," she protested. "Do you hate me, Fernande?" he insisted. She would have given worlds for the power to jump up then and there and to run away. But some invisible bond kept her chained to the spot. She could not move. There was a clump of meadowsweet close to her feet, all interwoven with marguerites, and overhead a mountain-ash was in full bloom and the pungent scent went to her head like wine. Her cheeks felt glowing with heat, and there were tiny beads of perspiration at the roots of her hair, but her hands felt cold and her feet numb, and her throat was dry and parched. She had just enough strength left to try and hide her confusion from him. She stooped and picked a marguerite, and thoughtfully, mechanically, her delicate fingers began to pull the white petals off one by one. "An that flower does not lie," he said, with the same quiet earnestness, "it will tell you that I love you ... passionately...." The word, the look which accompanied it--above all, his hand which had without any warning seized her own--suddenly dispelled the witchery which up to now had so unaccountably held her will and her spirit in bondage. With a brusque movement she jumped to her feet and wrenched her hand out of his grasp, and now stood before him, tall, stately, with flaming cheeks and wrath-filled eyes, whilst a laugh of infinite scorn broke from her lips. "_Ah ca!_" she exclaimed, "you have methinks taken leave of your senses, _Monsieur mon cousin_. Or hath rumour lied again, when it averred that you led an abstemious life? The cellars of La Vieuville are well stocked with wine apparently, and its fumes have overclouded your brain, or you had not dared to insult me with such folly." He, too, had risen and stood facing her, his cheeks pale beneath their bronze, his hands tightly clenched. "There is no insult," he said quietly, as soon as she had finished speaking, "in the offer of an honest man's love." "An honest man's love?" she retorted. "The love of a man whose hands are stained with the blood of all those I care for!"