her white hands were busy about the fastening of her mask.
"The knot is too hard," she murmured, with a little tremulous laugh and
a catch of her breath.

I untied the ribbons.

"May I not sit down?" she said plaintively, but with soft merriment in
her eyes. "I am not quite strong yet. My heart--you do not know what
pain I have in my heart sometimes. It makes me weep of nights and when
none are by, indeed it does!"

There was a settle beneath the window. I led her to it, and she sat
down.

"You must know that I am walking in the Governor's garden, that hath
only a lane between it and the gaol." Her eyes were downcast, her cheeks
pure rose.

"When did you first love me?" I demanded.

"Lady Wyatt must have guessed why Master Rolfe alone went not to the
bear-baiting, but joined us in the garden. She said the air was keen,
and fetched me her mask, and then herself went indoors to embroider
Samson in the arms of Delilah.'

"Was it here at Jamestown, or was it when we were first wrecked, or on
the island with the pink hill when you wrote my name in the sand, or"--

"The George will sail in three days, and we are to be taken back to
England after all. It does not scare me now."

"In all my life I have kissed you only once," I said.

The rose deepened, and in her eyes there was laughter, with tears
behind. "You are a gentleman of determination," she said. "If you
are bent upon having your way, I do not know that I--that I--can help
myself. I do not even know that I want to help myself."

Outside the wind blew and the sun shone, and the laughter from below the
fort was too far away and elfin to jar upon us. The world forgot us, and
we were well content. There seemed not much to say: I suppose we were
too happy for words. I knelt beside her, and she laid her hands in
mine, and now and then we spoke. In her short and lonely life, and in my
longer stern and crowded one, there had been little tenderness, little
happiness. In her past, to those about her, she had seemed bright and
gay; I had been a comrade whom men liked because I could jest as well as
fight. Now we were happy, but we were not gay. Each felt for the other a
great compassion; each knew that though we smiled to-day, the groan and
the tear might be to-morrow's due; the sunshine around us was pure gold,
but that the clouds were mounting we knew full well.

"I must soon be gone," she said at last. "It is a stolen meeting. I do
not know when we shall meet ag