The Amateur Gentleman

"You walk very fast!" said he again, but still she deigned him no

reply; therefore he stooped till he might see beneath her hood.

"Dear lady," said he very gently, "if I offended you a while

ago--forgive me--Cleone."

"Indeed," said she, looking away from him; "it would seem I must be

always forgiving you, Mr. Beverley."

"Why, surely it is a woman's privilege to forgive, Cleone--and my

name--"

"And a man's prerogative to be forgiven, I suppose, Mr. Beverley."

"When he repents as I do, Cleone; and my--"

"Oh! I forgive you," she sighed.

"Yet you still walk very fast."

"It must be nearly ten o'clock."

"I suppose so," said Barnabas, "and you will, naturally, be anxious

to reach home again."

"Home," she said bitterly; "I have no home."

"But--"

"I live in a gaol--a prison. Yes, a hateful, hateful prison, watched

by a one-legged gaoler, and guarded by a one-armed tyrant--yes, a

tyrant!" Here, having stopped to stamp her foot, she walked on

faster than ever.

"Can you possibly mean old Jerry and the Captain?"

Here my lady paused in her quick walk, and even condescended to look

at Barnabas.

"Do you happen to know them too, sir?"

"Yes; and my name is--"

"Perhaps you met them also this morning, sir?"

"Yes; and my--"

"Indeed," said she, with curling lip; "this has been quite an

eventful day for you."

"On the whole, I think it has; and may I remind you that my--"

"Perhaps you don't believe me when I say he is a tyrant?"

"Hum," said Barnabas.

"You don't, do you?"

"Why, I'm afraid not," he admitted.

"I'm nineteen!" said she, standing very erect.

"I should have judged you a little older," said Barnabas.

"So I am--in mind, and--and experience. Yet here I live, prisoned in

a dreary old house, and with nothing to see but trees, and toads,

and cows and cabbages; and I'm watched over, and tended from morning

till night, and am the subject of more councils of war than

Buonaparte's army ever was."

"What do you mean by councils of war?"

"Oh! whenever I do anything my tyrant disapproves of, he retires to

what he calls the 'round house,' summons the Bo'sun, and they argue

and talk over me as though I were a hostile fleet, and march up and

down forming plans of attack and defence, till I burst in on them,

and then--and then--Oh! there are many kinds of tyrants, and he is

one. And so to-night I left him; I ran away to meet--" She stopped

suddenly, and her head drooped, and Barnabas saw her white hands

clench themselves.

"Your brother," said he.

"Yes, my--brother," but her voice faltered at the word, and she went

on through the wood, but slowly now, and with head still drooping.

And so, at last, they came out of the shadows into the soft radiance

of the moon, and thus Barnabas saw that she was weeping; and she,

because she could no longer hide her grief, turned and laid a

pleading hand upon his arm.