Page:Hope--Sophy of Kravonia.djvu/344

SOPHY OF KRAVONIA without a sigh. She had not needed Dunstanbury's arguments to prove to her that there was no place for her left in Kravonia. She was content to have it so; she had done enough. Sorrow had not passed from her face, but serenity had come upon it in fuller measure. She had struck for Monseigneur, and the blow was witness to her love. It was enough in her, and enough in little Volseni. Let the mightier avengers do the rest!

She had allowed Dunstanbury to leave her after supper in order to make preparations for a start to the frontier at dawn. "You must certainly go," she had said, "and perhaps I'll come with you."

She went at night up on to the wall—always her favorite place; she loved the spaciousness of air and open country before her there. Basil Williamson found her deep in thought when he came to tell her of the progress of the wounded.

"They're all doing well, and Peter Vassip will live. Dunstanbury has made him promise to come to him when he's recovered, so you'll meet him again at all events. And Marie Zerkovitch and her husband talk of settling in Paris. You won't lose all your Kravonian friends."

"You assume that I'm coming with you to-morrow morning?"

"I'm quite safe in assuming that Dunstanbury won't go unless you do," he answered, smiling. "We can't leave you alone here, you know."

"I shouldn't stay here, anyhow," she said. "Or, at any rate, I should be where nobody could hurt me." She pointed at a dim lantern, fastened to the gate-tower by an iron clamp, then waved her hand towards the surrounding darkness. "That's life, isn't it?" she asked. "If I believed that I could go 326