Clementina

"And hide in the thicket," she interrupted. "Yet--yet--that leaves you

alone. I could give you some help;" and her face coloured. "You were so

kind as to tell me I had courage. I could at the least load your

pistols."

"You would do that?" cried Wogan. "Aye, but you would, you would!"

For the first time that day he forgot to address her with the ceremony

of her title. All that day he had schooled his tongue to the use of it.

They were not man and woman, though his heart would have it so; they

were princess and servant, and every minute he must remember it. But he

forgot it now. Delicate she was to look upon as any princess who had

ever adorned a court, delicate and fresh, rich-voiced and young, but

here was the rare woman flashing out like a light over stormy seas, the

spirit of her and her courage!

"You would load my pistols!" he repeated, his whole face alight. "To be

sure, you would do that. But I ask you, I think, for a higher courage. I

ask you to climb down that ladder, to run alone, taking shelter when

there's need, back to that narrow gorge we saw where the path leads

upwards to the bluff. There was a hut; two hours would take you to it,

and there you should be safe. I will keep the enemy back till you are

gone. If I can, when all is over here I'll follow you. If I do not come,

why, you must--"

"Ah, but you will come," said she, with a smile. "I have no fears but

that you will come;" and she added, "Else would you never persuade me

to go."

"Well, then, I will come. At all events, Captain Misset and his wife

will surely come down the road to-morrow. If I rap twice upon your door,

you will take that for my signal. But it is very likely I shall not rap

at all."

Wogan shivered as he spoke. It was not for the first time during that

conversation, and a little later, as they stood together in the passage

by the stair-head, Clementina twice remarked that he shivered again.

There was an oil lamp burning against the passage wall, and by its light

she could see that on that warm night of spring his face was pinched

with cold. He was in truth chilled to the bone through lack of sleep;

his eyes had the strained look of a man strung to the breaking point,

and at the sight of him the mother in her was touched.