After a moment in a voice less steady than before she
asked him:
"Why should this Frenchman have told you such a tale? Did he hate
this Captain Blood?"
"I did not gather that," said his lordship slowly. "He related
it... oh, just as a commonplace, an instance of buccaneering ways.
"A commonplace!" said she. "My God! A commonplace!"
"I dare say that we are all savages under the cloak that civilization
fashions for us," said his lordship. "But this Blood, now, was a
man of considerable parts, from what else this Cahusac told me. He
was a bachelor of medicine."
"That is true, to my own knowledge."
"And he has seen much foreign service on sea and land. Cahusac said
- though this I hardly credit - that he had fought under de Ruyter."
"That also is true," said she. She sighed heavily. "Your Cahusac
seems to have been accurate enough. Alas!"
"You are sorry, then?"
She looked at him. She was very pale, he noticed.
"As we are sorry to hear of the death of one we have esteemed.
Once I held him in regard for an unfortunate but worthy gentleman.
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