“’Tis not a pleasing thing, I grant you, Margery; notwithstanding, of our two evils it is by far the less.  Bethink you a moment:  ’tis but the saying of a few words by the priest, and the bearing of my name for some short while till you can change it for a better.”

Her deep-welled eyes met mine, and in them was a flash of anger.

“Is that what marriage means to you, Captain Ireton?”

“No, truly.  But we have no choice.  ’Tis this, or I must leave you in the morning to worse things than the bearing of my name.  I would it had not thus been thrust upon us, but I could see no other way.”

“See what comes of tampering with the truth,” she said, and I could see her short lip curl with scorn.  “Why should you lie and lie again, when any one could see that it must come to this—­or worse?”

“I saw it not,” I said.  “But had I stopped to look beyond the moment’s need and seen the end from the beginning, I fear I should have lied yet other times.  Your honor was at stake, dear lady.”

“My honor!”—­this in bitterest irony.  “What is a woman’s honor, sir, when you or any man has patched and sewed and sought to make it whole again?  I will not say the word you’d have me say!”

“But you must say it, Margery.  ’Tis but the merest form; you forget that you will be a wife only in name.  I shall not live to make you rue it.”

“You make me rue it now, beforehand. Mon Dieu! is a woman but a thing, to stand before the priest and plight her troth for ‘merest form’?  You’ll make me hate you while I live—­and after!”

“You’d hate me worse, Margery dear, if I should leave you drowning in this ditch.  And I can bear your hatred for some few hours, knowing that if I sinned and robbed you, I did make restitution as I could.”

She heard me through with eyelids down and some fierce storm of passion shaking her.  And when she answered her voice was low and soft; yet it cut me like a knife.

“You drive me to it—­listen, sir, you drive me to it!  And I have said that I shall hate you for it.  Come; ’tis but a mockery, as you say; and they are waiting.”

I sought to take her hand and lead her forth, but this she would not suffer.  She walked beside me, proud and cold and scornful; stood beside me while I sat and read the parchment over.  It was no marriage settlement; it was a will, drawn out in legal form.  And in it I bequeathed to Margery Ireton as her true jointure, not any claim of mine to Appleby Hundred, but the estate itself.

I read it through as I have said, and, looking across to these two plotters, the miser-master and his henchman, smiled as I had never thought to smile again.

“So,” said I; “the truth is out at last.  I wondered if the confiscation act had left you wholly scatheless, Mr. Stair.  Well, I am content.  I shall die the easier for knowing that I have lain a guest in my own house.  Give me the pen.”