Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/131

117 faltered—"I expect no promises. Let us start. But before we go I demand of you, as you are a man and a—anything but a craven coward,—go to that poor creature and make her such promises, great or small, as she has a right to expect."

"I will do whatever you require," he said, humbly.

"I require nothing. You promised to make her your wife. Is that reasonable? I cannot tell. I see that she has risked all she has for you. Once more I say, I ask no questions. I need know nothing. Go to her. She believes in you. At least show that you are not a—nay, we will not bandy epithets. I shall be waiting for you in the passage. I am ready."

When he joined her, he began, with much embarrassment, to explain what was needed.

"I must take you," he said, "to a sort of place you have never seen before—a house of entertainment. If the police are watching me, as I presume, they will think we intend to remain there. My luggage is at the hotel. I must leave it behind."

She thought with bitterness of her position at that moment—she, the Prefect's daughter. But she only drew the hood of her heavy mantle about her face. He continued speaking, earnest words, tender words, a medley of excuse and appeal. After a moment she stopped him.

"Let us not speak," she said. "What further need is there of words between you and me?"

They went on then, in silence. Through the still streets, with here and there, at corners, a miserable oil-lamp. Into the hospitable doors where his coming was expected and his early departure most heavily paid for. A brief pause while he made up to suit the passport, she not helping him, from sheer inability to touch him, as she stood by his side. Then away down the desolate back garden and out at the gate by the water. Away, in unbroken silence still, along deserted byways, to the terrible moment at the custom-house.

"An Englishman and his wife, of no particular importance, a third-rate unofficial agent of the British government, described in the passport as a solicitor's clerk, embarking in the small vessel about to start for England." The "signalement" is sufficiently accurate. A few lazy glances in these tired night-watches. A heavy stamp on the document, fees—the breath of the night wind, the lap of the water, and a rowing-boat throbbing with two throbbing hearts.

"I am safe," he whispered in her ear. "The captain is bribed to start as soon as I am on board. The wind is straight for freedom!" Then suddenly, most tardily, he seemed to remember. "And you?" he said.

"These men will land me on the other side," she answered, "at my aunt's farm of 'Veldzicht'; there I shall spend what remains of the night. I have left a note at the hotel for Felix. To-morrow I return to Haarlem and confess all to the General.'"

"He will not hurt a woman," murmured Floris, smoothly.

"No," she answered him. "Men never do."

His thoughts had flown back across the dark of the water. "But how about 'Veldzicht'?" he said. "You planned this before!"

"What if I did ?" she asked, fiercely.

"You—you came after me to help me."

"In troth I did not know another woman had already undertaken the task."

He did not reply. Already they were approaching the bigger vessel. Her broad bows loomed black in the dark.

"But she failed, you see," continued Agnes, in accents of sad triumph. "So my aid was not superfluous, after all."

He caught hold of her fingers and covered them with kisses. Then, as the boat swept alongside, he sprang to a rope ladder dangling ready, and clung to it with both hands, eager to climb.

She had risen in the rowing-boat as he left it. And she flung herself forward, with both arms about his neck, and kissed him repeatedly on each cheek.

Holding on with one hand, a foot raised on a rung of the ladder, he disengaged an arm to encircle her waist. But already she had sunk back in the stern. The boat broke away.

"Go!" she said, in a low voice, to the men.

He hung on the ladder. "Agnes!" he cried. "Au revoir!"

She looked at him quickly in the darkness. "Ah no!" she said. "Adieu!"