Mr. Kelly made no answer, and perhaps Wogan's remark was not the discreetest in the world. Miss Rose would not forget that name, Brampton Bryan. At all events, the three of them fell to silence once more, and Mr. Wogan knew that he was trespassing and that he would have done better to have journeyed straight to Paris. Rose, however, came to the rescue and made him tell over again, as he had told her often before, his stories of the march to Preston. But, whereas before she had listened to them with a great enthusiasm and an eagerness for more, now her colour came and went as though they frightened her, and she would glance with a quick apprehension towards the Parson.
'And the battles are to be fought all over again,' she said, clasping her hands on her knees, and then plied Wogan for more details. She shivered at the thought of wounds and cannon-balls and swords, yet she must know to the very last word all that was to be described of them. So, until the sun sank behind the low green hills of the Cevennes, and the Rhone at their feet, in that land of olives, took on a pure olive tint. Then she rose and went into the house to prepare the supper, leaving the two friends together; and it presently appeared that Rose Townley was not the only one who was frightened.
The Parson watched her as she went down the garden, brushing the pink blossoms from the boughs of a peach tree or two that grew on the lawn. There was an old moss-grown stone sundial close to the house; she paused for a moment beside it to pick up a scarf which was laid on the top and so passed through the window, whence in a moment or two a lamp-light shone. The Parson seemed sunk in a reverie.
'I am afraid, Nick,' he said slowly. 'I am afraid.'
'What! You too?' exclaimed Wogan. 'Afraid of the wars?'
'The wars--no, no,' replied Kelly scornfully dismissing the interpretation of his fears, and then following out his own train of thoughts, 'you have known her a long time, Nick?'
'Six years.'
'I would that I too had known her six years ago,' said the Parson with a remorseful sigh.
'She has changed in those six years.'
'How?'