Page:A C Doyle - The White Company.djvu/121

Rh common cur, like its master.' As she spoke, she sprang herself into the shallow stream and ran swiftly up the centre of it, with the brown water bubbling over her feet, and her hand outstretched to ward off the clinging branches of bramble or sapling. Alleyne followed close at her heels, with his mind in a whirl at this black welcome and sudden shifting of all bis plans and hopes. Yet, grave as were his thoughts, they would still turn to wonder as he looked at the twinkling feet of his guide and saw her lithe figure bend this way and that, dipping under boughs, springing over stones, with a lightness and ease which made it no small task for him to keep up with her. At last, when he was almost out of breath, she suddenly threw herself down upon a mossy bank, between two holly-bushes, and looked ruefully at her own dripping feet and bedraggled skirt.

'Holy Mary!' said she, 'what shall I do? Mother will keep me to my chamber for a month, and make me work at the tapestry of the nine bold knights. She promised as much last week, when I fell into Wilverley bog, and yet she knows that I cannot abide needlework.'

Alleyne, still standing in the stream, glanced down at the graceful pink-and-white figure, the curve of raven-black hair, and the proud, sensitive face, which looked up frankly and confidingly at his own.

'We had best on,' he said. 'He may yet overtake us.'

'Not so. We are well off his land now, nor can he tell in this great wood which way we have taken. But you—you had him at your mercy. Why did you not kill him?'

'Kill him! My brother!'

'And why not?'—with a quick gleam of her white teeth. 'He would have killed you. I know him, and I read it in his eyes. Had I had your staff I would have tried—ay, and done it, too.' She shook her clenched white hand as she spoke, and her lips tightened ominously.

'I am already sad in heart for what I have done,' said he, sitting down on the bank, and sinking his face into his hands, 'God help me! all that is worst in me seemed to