He looked down at her most closely, and gradually compassion crept
into his face. He set his hands on her shoulders, she suffering it
passively, insensibly.
"You care for him, Sylvia?" he said, between inquiry and wonder.
"Well, well! We are both fools together, child. The man is a
dastard, a blackguard, a Judas, to be repaid with betrayal for
betrayal. Forget him, girl. Believe me, he isn't worth a thought."
"Terence!" She looked in her turn into that distorted face. "Are
you mad?" she asked him.
"Very nearly," he answered, with a laugh that was horrible to hear.
She drew back and away from him, bewildered and horrified. Slowly
she rose to her feet. She controlled with difficulty the deep
emotion swaying her. "Tell me," she said slowly, speaking with
obvious effort, "what will they do to Captain Tremayne?"
"What will they do to him?" He looked at her. He was smiling.
"They will shoot him, of course."
"And you wish it!" she denounced him in a whisper of horror.
"Above all things," he answered. "A more poetic justice never
overtook a blackguard."
"Why do you call him that? What do you mean?"
"I will tell you - afterwards, after they have shot him; unless
the truth comes out before.
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