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"Jacek!" cried the Warden, "you are clever at finding excuses!

Well? They do not lessen your guilt! For it has happened many a

time ere now that a man has fallen in love with the daughter of a

lord or king, and has tried to capture her by force; has planned

to steal her away or to avenge himself openly-but so stealthily

to kill him! a Polish lord, in Poland, and in league with the

Muscovites!"

"I was not in league with them," answered Jacek in a voice full

of sorrow. "Seize her by force? I might have; from behind

gratings and locks I would have snatched her; I would have

shattered this castle of his into dust! I had behind me Dobrzyn

and four other hamlets. Ah, would that she had been such as our

plain gentlewomen, strong and vigorous! Would that she had not

dreaded flight and the pursuit and could have borne the sound of

clashing arms! But the poor child! Her parents had shielded her

so carefully that she was frail and timid! She was but a little

spring caterpillar-the larva of a butterfly! And to snatch her

thus, to touch her with an armed hand, would have been to kill

her. I could not! No!