Page:Mary Stuart (Drinkwater).djvu/19

8 Boyd: She did not accuse herself, I think. She trusted you, splendidly.

Hunter: That's oddly put, isn't it? The trusting, surely, was mine.

Boyd: I think not, not at least as you see it. What was it you trusted?

Hunter: Margaret's devotion.

Boyd: Her love of you, you mean?

Hunter: Yes, that.

Boyd: Has she betrayed your trust?

Hunter: What's the use of saying it over and over again?

Boyd: There's folly in it, my boy, and I want you to see it. I want you to see exactly where the betrayal is, so that whatever you do shall not be done blindly. You trusted Margaret's love. It is a wide thing, radiant, the capacity in her for loving?

Hunter: It made me a king.

Boyd: Very well. She gave her love to you, freely. I've seen it, and I know its richness. Suppose it had been a poor, mean thing, with no roots, subject to little, dark intrigues, lightly given and lightly taken away. Then this new interest, or any, would have been—what shall