John Falconer had cleared the men from the room, and set his torch in a rusty bracket on the wall, where it threw a wayward, draughty flare upon his face. Mellis stood by the window with her back turned to him, rigid, motionless, her hands at her throat. “There will come a time when you will thank me for this.” She was struggling for self-mastery, and against the bitter shame that they had thrust upon her, while her heart had gone out into the darkness with Martin Valliant, and in a way she was desperate, robbed of her love. She might have come through her anguish in silence had John Falconer been less of a dull and jealous fool. “Now get you to bed, child; there will be peace in this house.” “Peace!” She flashed around on him with generous fury. “Peace—for me, when you have treated me as though I were a harlot? Oh, you blind fools, you souls full of foul imaginings! That man was a saint, white as God’s own self. And you have robbed me of such a love as a man but seldom gives to a woman. Yes, he could have taken that sword and given death to many of your curs, but there was a nobleness, a humility, that did not touch you. He knew what was in your hearts, that you hated him, were jealous, breathed foul lies. He besought me to let him go. And I—I bade him stay. I would that he had taken all that a woman has to give; yes, my very body and soul. There is the truth; I fling it in your face, John Falconer, you sour and godly and grudging hound!” Her anger scorched him like a flame. He answered her hoarsely. “It was for your sake I did it. For you are precious to us.” “My sake! Ye gods! Is a woman’s love to be put in pawn by gray fools and wiseacres? I tell you I am his; I shall die his; I would that he had taken all that I had to give. And I am precious to you? Never, by my soul! I cast you off! I am your enemy henceforth, and every man here is my mortal foe. May disaster befall you all! May you be cut off, slain, trampled into the earth! Get you gone out of this room; my love has slept here, and you do foul it.” She advanced on him, and he went back before her, covering his face with his arm. “You will thank me—yet,” he said. “Nay, I shall die before I thank you,” and she closed the door on him as he went out. _Chapter XXXVI_ Martin Valliant had fallen into great darkness of soul. The Forest lay about him, vast, silent, and mysterious; the sky was overclouded, and the moon obscured; and life seemed like the Forest, all black and without a purpose, a wilderness where wild beasts wandered and outcast men hid themselves from the law.