ON SATURDAY AT MIKLEVNI!
and Basil Williamson. I've some influence, and I can insure your getting through all right."
"And then?"
"Whatever you like. I shall be utterly at your orders."
She leaned her head against the high chair in which she sat, a chair of old oak, black as her hair; she fixed her profound eyes on his.
"I wish I could stay here—in the little church— with Monseigneur," she said.
"By Heavens, no!" he cried, startled into sudden and untimely vehemence.
"All my life is there," she went on, paying no heed to his outburst.
"Give life another chance. You're very young."
"You can't count life by years, any more than hours by minutes. You reckon the journey not by the clock, but by the stages you have passed. Once before I loved a man—and he was killed in battle. But that was different. I was very hurt, but I wasn't maimed. I'm maimed now by the death of Monseigneur."
"You can't bring ruin on these folk, and you can't give yourself up to Stenovics." He could not trust himself to speak more of her feelings nor of the future; he came back to the present needs of the case.
"It's true—and yet we swore!" She leaned forward to him. "And you—aren't you afraid of the Red Star?"
"We Essex men aren't afraid, we haven't enough imagination," he answered, smiling again.
She threw herself back, crying low: "Ah, if we could strike one blow—just one—for the oath we swore and for Monseigneur! Then perhaps I should be content."
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