He paused, and the embers fell, growing gray in the silence. At last he spoke again, in a changed voice. "Thy brother, lady.... There will not lack those to tell thee that I tripped him with my foot, that I slew him with my dagger. It is not true, and yet I count myself his murderer.... See the shadow at thy feet, the heavy shadow that lies between you and me!... How may I say that I would have given my life for him who was thy brother and my charge, whom for his own sake I loved, when I gave not my life, when I bought my life with his and many another's?... Thou dost well to say no word, but I would that thou didst not press thy hands against thy heart, nor look at me with those eyes. A little longer and I will let thee go, and Sidney's sister will comfort thee and be kind to thee." "What else?" said Damaris, beneath her breath. "What else? O God! no more!" Ferne drew from his doublet a knot of soiled ribbon. Again he was speaking, but not with the voice he had used before. "Thy favor.... I have brought it back to thee--but not stainless, not worn in triumph.... There is a fortress and a town that I see sometimes in a dream, and the governor of them both is a nobleman of Spain--Don Luiz de Guardiola, Governor of Nueva Cordoba. He filched from me my honor, but left me life that I might taste death in life. He set me on the river sands that I might call to the ships I had not sunken and to the comrades I had not slain. He gave me back my sword that in the cabin of the _Mere Honour_, in my leader's presence, I might break the blade in twain. He restored me _this_ when he had ground it beneath his heel!--No, no, I will not have you speak! But was he not a subtle gentleman?... Now, by your leave, I shall burn the ribbon." He crossed to the great fireplace and threw the length of velvet ribbon into a glowing hollow. It caught and blazed and illuminated his face. Damaris moved also, groping with her hands for the chair beside the table. Finding it, she sank down, outstretched her arms upon the board, and bowed her head upon them. Through the faintness and the leaden horror that weighed her down she heard Ferne's voice, at first yet monotonous and low, at the last an irrepressible cry of passion: "Now there is no longer troth between us, and all thy days, by summer and by winter, thou mayst listen unabashed to tales of such as I. If I am named to thee, thou needst not blush, for now I have seared away that eve above the river, that morn at Penshurst. And there will be no more singing, and men will soon forget, as thou too--as thou too must forget! I loved; I love; but to thy lips and thy dark, dark eyes, and thy whole sweet self I say farewell.... Farewell!"