, coming in yesterday, brought news which
removed his Honor's scruples. Now she'll wait to see out this hand at
the cards, and to take home the names of those who are left alive
in Virginia. If the red varlets do swarm in upon us, there are her
twelve-pounders; they and the fort guns"--

I let him talk on. The George had not sailed. I saw again a firelit
hut, and a man and a panther who went down together. Those claws had dug
deep; the man across whose face they had torn their way would keep his
room in the guest house at Jamestown until his wounds were somewhat
healed. The George would wait for him, would scarcely dare to sail
without him, and I should find the lady whom she was to carry away to
England in Virginia still. It was this that I had built upon, the
grain of comfort, the passionate hope, the sustaining cordial, of those
year-long days in the village above the Pamunkey.

My heart was sore because of Diccon; but I could speak of that grief to
her, and she would grieve with me. There were awe and dread and stern
sorrow in the knowledge that even now in the bright spring morning blood
from a hundred homes might be flowing to meet the shining, careless
river; but it was the springtime, and she was waiting for me. I strode
on toward the stairway so fast that when I asked a question Master Pory,
at my side, was too out of breath to answer it. Halfway down the stairs
I asked it again, and again received no answer save a "Zooks! you go
too fast for my years and having in flesh! Go more slowly, Ralph Percy;
there's time enough, there's time enough!"

There was a tone in his voice that I liked not, for it savored of pity.
I looked at him with knitted brows; but we were now in the hall, and
through the open door of the great room I caught a glimpse of a woman's
skirt. There were men in the hall, servants and messengers, who made
way for us, staring at me as they did so, and whispering. I knew that
my clothing was torn and muddied and stained with blood; as we paused
at the door there came to me in a flash that day in the courting meadow
when I had tried with my dagger to scrape the dried mud from my boots.
I laughed at myself for caring now, and for thinking that she would care
that I was not dressed for a lady's bower. The next moment we were in
the great room.

She was not there. The silken skirt that I had seen, and--there being
but one woman in all the world for me--had taken for hers, belonged to
Lady Wyatt, wh