"Oh, why didn't you leave me to die? Why--why--why?"
He answered her in a voice that seemed to rise from the depths of the broad chest that supported her.
She buried her face deeper that he might not see the cruel burning of it. "So did he--then."
"Not he!" The deep voice held unutterable contempt. "He wanted to make his fortune out of you, that's all. He didn't care whether you lived or died, the damn' cur!"
She shrank at the fierce words, and was instantly aware of the jealous closing of his arms about her.
"You aren't going to break your heart for a dirty swab like that," he said, with more of insistence than interrogation in his voice. "Look you here, Columbine! You're too honest to care for a beast like that. Why--though I pulled him out of the quicksand and saved him from the sea--I'd have wrung his neck if he'd stayed another day. I would that."
She started at the fiery declaration, and raised her head. "Oh, it was you who sent him away, then?"
Her look held almost desperate entreaty for a moment, but he met it with the utmost grimness and it quickly died.
"I didn't then," he said, with rough simplicity. "He made up his mind without any help from me. He knew he couldn't face you again. It's not a mite of good trying to deceive yourself now you know the truth. He's gone, and he won't come back. Columbine, don't tell me as you want him to!"
His expression for the moment was formidable. She caught an ominous gleam in the stern eyes, but almost immediately they softened. He uttered a sigh that ended in a groan. "Now I'm being a brute to you, when there's nothing that I wouldn't do for your sake." His voice shook a little. "You won't believe it, but it's true--it's true."
"Why shouldn't I believe it?" she said swiftly. She had begun to tremble in his hold.
He looked at her with an odd wistfulness. "Because I'm too big an oaf--to make you understand," he said.
"And that is why you have set me free?" she questioned.
He bent his head, almost as if the sudden question embarrassed him. "Yes, that," he said after a moment. "And because I care too much about you to--marry you against your will."
He made a slight gesture of surprise. "It is love," he said simply.
His arms were still around her, but she had only to move to be free. She did not move, save that she quivered like a vibrating wire, quivered and hid her face.