Page:Hope--Sophy of Kravonia.djvu/316

SOPHY OF KRAVONIA "To go with me?"

"Perhaps—if, in striking it, what I should think best didn't come to me."

"You must run no danger, anyhow," he cried, hastily and eagerly.

"My friend," she said, gently, "for such as I am to-day there's no such thing as danger. Don't think I value my position here or the title they've given me, poor men! I have loved titles"—for a moment she smiled—"and I should have loved this one, if Monseigneur had lived. I should have been proud as a child of it. If I could have borne it by his side for even a few weeks, a few days! But now it's barren and bitter—bitter and barren to me."

He followed the thoughts at which her words hinted; they seemed to him infinitely piteous.

"Now, as things have fallen out, what am I in this country? A waif and stray! I belong to nobody, and nobody to me."

"Then come away!" he burst out again.

Her deep eyes were set on his face once more.

"Yes, that's the conclusion," she said, very mournfully. "We Essex people are sensible, aren't we? And we have no imagination. Did you laugh when you saw me proclaimed and heard us swear?"

"Good Heavens, no!"

"Then think how my oath and my love call me to strike one blow for Monseigneur!" She hid her eyes behind her hand for a moment. "Aren't there fifty —thirty—twenty, who would count their lives well risked? For what are men's lives given them?"

"There's one at least, if you will have it so," Dunstanbury answered.

There was a knock on the door, and without waiting for a bidding Zerkovitch came quickly in; 298