Thus as I went, chancing to stumble against a tree, I leaned there awhile; and now remembering those two blows under the armpit, what with this stabbing and my fall and lack of food, for I had eaten but once that day, I grew faint and sick. But as I leaned there, out of the gloom came a hand that fumbled timidly my bowed head, my arm, my hand.
"Sir--are you hurt?" questioned a voice, and here once again I was struck by the strange, vital quality of this voice, its bell-like depth and sweetness.
"No whit!" says I. Now as I spoke it chanced she touched the knife in my grasp and I felt her shiver a little.
"Did you--O sir--did you--kill him?"
"And wherefore no?" I questioned. "And why call me 'sir'?"
"You do speak as one of gentle birth."
"And go like the beggar I am--in rags. I am no 'sir.'"
"How may I call you?"
"Call me rogue, thief, murderer--what ye will, 'tis all one. But as for you," quoth I, lifting my head, "'tis time you were gone--see yonder!" and I pointed where a light winked through the trees, a light that danced to and fro, coming slowly nearer until it stopped all at once, then rose a shout answered by other shouts and a roar of dismayed blasphemy. At this my companion pressed nearer so that I felt her shiver again.
"Let us be gone!" she whispered. "Marjorie, come, child, let us haste." So we went on together at speed, and ever as we went that small, soft hand was upon the hand that held the knife. So we sped on through the dark, these two maids and I, unseeing and unseen, speaking little by reason of our haste.
Presently the rain ceased, the wind abated its rage and the thunder pealed faint with distance, while ever and anon the gloom gave place to a vague light, where, beyond the flying cloud-wrack, a faint moon peeped.
Guided by that slender hand, so soft and yet instinct with warm and vigorous life, I stumbled on through leafy ways, traversed a little wood, on and ever on until, the trees thinning, showed beyond a glimmer of the great high road. Here I stayed.
"Madam," says I, making some ado over the unfamiliar word. "You should be safe now--and, as I do think, your road lieth yonder."
"Pembury is but a mile hence," says she, "and there we may get horses. Come, at least this night you shall find comfort and shelter."
"No," says I. "No--I am a thing of the roads, and well enough in hedge or rick!" and I would have turned but her hand upon my sleeve restrained me.