, deeming the fierce joy of it well
worth any penalty.

At this I should have stirred, I suppose, for she came quickly and
stood beside me.

"You have slept long and well, Captain Ireton," she said; and in all the
thrilling joy of her nearer presence I found space to mark that her
voice had in it that sweet quality of sympathy which is all womanly.
"They say I am good only to fetch and carry--may I fetch you anything?"

I fear the madness of the moment must still have been upon me, for I
said: "Since you are here yourself, dear lady, I need naught else."

At a flash I had my whipping in a low dipped curtsy and a mocking smile
like that she had flung to Falconnet.

"_Merci! mon Capitaine_," she said; and for all my wincings under the
sharp lash of her sarcasm I was moved to wonder how she had the French
of it. And then she added: "Is it the custom for Her Apostolic Majesty's
officers to come out of a death-swound only to pay pretty compliments?"

"'Twas no compliment," I denied; and, indeed, I meant it. Then I asked
where I was, and to whom indebted, though I had long since guessed the
answer to both questions.

In a trice the mocking mood was gone and she became my lady hostess,
steeped to her finger-tips in gracious dignity.

"You are at Appleby Hundred, sir. 'Twas here they fetched you because
there was no other house so near, and you were sorely hurt. Richard
Jennifer and my black boy made a litter of the saddle-cloths, and with
Sir Francis and Mr. Tybee to help--"

I think she must have seen that this thrust was sharper than that of the
German long-sword, for she stopped in mid-sentence and looked away from
me. And, surely, I thought it was the very irony of fate that I should
thus be brought half dead to the house that was my father's, with my
enemy and his second to share the burden of me.

"But your father?" I queried, when the silence had grown over-long.

"My father is away at Queensborough, so you must e'en trust yourself to
my tender mercies, Captain Ireton. Are you strong enough to have your
wound dressed?"

She asked, but waited for no answer of mine. Summoning a black boy to
hold the basin of water, she fell to upon the wound-dressing with as
little ado as if she had been a surgeon's apprentice on a battle-field,
and I a bloodless ancient too old to thrill at the touch of a woman's
hands.

"Dear heart! 'tis a monstrous ugly hurt," she declared, replacing the
wrappings with deft fingers. "Ho