Now that ravished kiss of the night before sat lightly on my heart, but not so easily on my conscience. God knows, my love for her was big enough to excuse the loving violence ten times over; but it stuck in my throat that, but for my imminent peril, I might not have had the courage to do it. Confession was the thing; but how could I confess enough without confessing too much? “I came here to-night to beg your forgiveness, Beatrix,” I began, plunging into the middle of the thing because there was no guide-post to show me any beaten highway leading up to it. She did not pretend to misunderstand. “Oh; so you are properly ashamed, are you? I think you should be, Richard Page!” “No, not ashamed: but I shall be sore-hearted if I have to go away and leave you angry at me. But are you angry, Beatrix?” “Desperately.” “Would anything I could say--” “Nothing, sir.” “Not if I tell you that--” I paused on the brink of the horridest chasm that ever opened before a halting lover in this world of lovers’ pitfalls. If I confessed that the kiss saved my life--as well it may have--how could I make her understand--but I could never make her understand. She would hold me as the paltriest coward that ever breathed if I should so much as hint at the thing which had given me the kissing courage at that perilous moment. “What could you tell me, if you were so disposed, Mr. Page?” she asked, and now I thought the sarcasm was only half-hearted. “I could tell you what I have told you a hundred times before, Beatrix; that I love you: that I am never near you without having to fight most desperately for even decent self-control.” “But I do not love you, Dick Page.” I jerked my chair around to face her. “Is it because you do love Seytoun?” I demanded, full of jealous wrath in an instant. “Foolish boy! Do you say that because I won’t let you quarrel with Captain Seytoun? There may be better reasons why I wish you to keep the peace in that quarter, sir.” “Yet you say you do not love me?” “I don’t, Mr. Richard Page--not in the coat you are wearing.” My arms went out to her, and she moved her chair well out of my reach before she went on. “No; don’t assume that the coat is a little thing, lightly to be ignored. It is not, for a Leigh. I shall gladly die a spinster before I’ll ever wed it, I do assure you, Dick.” All this time she was looking steadily into the fire, and I was wondering where her heart-broken sorrow of the night before had gone. But it came, even while I was seeking for words in which to hint that my present Judas-coat might not always stand between us; the trembling of the sweet lips, the welling up of the tears. “Oh, what madness possessed you, Dick?” she wailed; “you, who were the bravest, the most devoted, the most cheerful when all was darkest!” I rose and settled my sword-belt. There was more love-violence ahead if I should stay; that, and the certain breaking of my promise to Mr. Hamilton.