"Oh! Peggie, I am a very wicked woman, I fear," she sobbed. "Can anything be worse than to make a solemn vow before God to love and honor a man I do not mean ever to see again—to swear to keep him in sickness and poverty, when all I wish for is that he may die a violent death to save me from my just debts? Oh! no, no. I do not wish it, Peggie. The man loves me! If ever I saw love in a man’s eyes, it was when Robin held me in his arms and prayed me give him one kiss and then forget him! Alas, Peggie, I can never forget him! He will haunt me with those eyes that can look death in the face without blenching, and yet will be closed for ever in a few hours. Oh! Peggie, Peggie, he must not die for me." "He does not die for you, dear Prue. He dies for his crimes. Faith, I’m sorry for it, though he isn’t my husband. But think what a plight you would be in if he were to live!" Peggie remonstrated. Prue looked at her like a child suddenly roused from sleep and finding its way back gradually from dreamland. "’Tis true," she gasped. "What would become of me?" "You are his wife," Peggie went on, "and as long as he lives you can not marry any one else. As to your debts—if he were not to die, he would have to pay them or go to prison." "Oh, Peggie, stop! Every word you say makes me hate myself worse and worse. I must have been mad to marry a robber—a man who forced a kiss from me at the point of a pistol, as it were, and yet now he is my husband I can not, dare not, wish him dead." "If you wished it ever so much, dear, you could neither help nor hinder it," Peggie began consolingly. "I’m not so sure of that," cried Prue, raising herself on her elbow and speaking excitedly. "Do you know last night when I was in the duchess’ box I had more than half a mind to fall on my knees before her and own everything and implore her to save Robin’s life—" "Great Heaven!" gasped Peggie. "What on earth do you suppose she would have done to you?" "I do not know, and I am not sure that I care much," sighed Prue, sinking back on her pillow. "But I’m a wretched coward at heart, and a lump came up in my throat and stifled the words, and all I could say when she saw the tears running down my face was some foolishness about the play being so affecting, when every one round me was laughing and I didn’t even know what the actors were talking about." "What did the duchess say?" asked Peggie, eager for all the information she could obtain while her cousin was in the mood to tell it. "That I was a little fool. And Lord Ripworth said, ’Not at all, that I wanted them to see how lovely I looked in tears.’ And they all joked me until I would rather have been hanged myself than hinted at anything tragic in my life."