The Dumpling by Coulson Kernahan

Kate gave a terrible cry as the words fell from my lips, and snatching away the hand which I had been holding, staggered, white and faint, to the sofa.

"Don't turn from me, darling," I said, kneeling beside her. "No one who fears God and honours his King, who loves his country, could have acted other than I did. The man meant well, meant nobly, I believe, originally, and his passion and devotion to the cause of the poor I shall remember with reverence to the end of my life. But his well-meaning had passed into mania, so that he had become, as you know, a relentless and wholesale murderer, whose very existence was a menace to the nation. I struck because I was compelled, and in self-defence. I had no option, for his intention at the moment was to murder me. Had I spared him, he would either have died at the hangman's hands, or, more horrible still, have dragged out his remaining years in a madhouse. You are a woman, darling; not a girl any longer -- a brave woman, a true woman, and must see that, terrible as it was and is, I should have been a traitor to my King and country had I failed to act as I did, for, mad for blood as the man was, he might -- would, I believe, within the next few minutes -- have murdered the King himself."