'How, quotha? Death only will release that mad reckless girl. Ah! I might have known her.'
'Neither prayers nor commands, Charlie, would she listen to; no, not if you were rolling in riches now, she says she would not break her oath. Charlie! O love, what do I urge you to! You must fight that old man, and we must fly. Not to kill him, Charlie, hark ye!--not to kill him; but to disable him for what life he has left! Think me merciless, unwomanly; I care not, so that it saves her. Or stay, stay, Charlie! Will ye use all your influence first to turn him? O ye can talk to tenderness a heart o' stone! Talk to Adam Sinclair then till he melts to pity; but set sweet Deborah free!'
'_Talk_ to him!' said Charlie Fleming, with a short laugh; 'ay, I will _talk_. But we have old accounts to settle first, old debts to square. We have a little affair to settle between ourselves, Adam Sinclair and I. Hark ye, Meg! He has accused me of foul play--not to my face, not he! but behind my back. He has accused me of cheating at cards--a dirty trick to brand on a man; and as ye know, love, whatever Charlie Fleming's faults, he would scorn so foul an act. I don't mind telling ye now, Meg, that I must wipe off this slander with blood. All my comrades are up in arms at it; and even _now_ I am on my way to Lincoln, to meet Adam Sinclair face to face; and in case I fall, Meg--to bid thee now farewell.' He took her in his arms; he folded back the long dark hair from the passionate face. In bitter wrath and passion had she trembled at hearing of the foul slander put on his fair fame; and her fiery spirit, following the spirit of his words, had made her grasp his hands, and pant and frown in eagerness for revenge. But when she pictured him dead--lying perchance beneath the old man's deadly shot, stiffening in his blood, in the perished glory of his youth and strength--then her woman's heart began to shudder and to faint: she leaned on his broad breast and moaned.
'What! sick?' he whispered. 'Faint? A little _poltroon_! The wife of a Fleming must be brave. _Thou_ wouldst hate and despise Charles Fleming if he could for one moment brook such an insult as this. Come; I meant to bid thee good-bye, and hide this from thee; but now I have told thee all, thou must face death with me, and take it as it comes.'