"Why—why did you promise that?" she asked. "It has always been his mad dream. And when I told him I did not want to be restored, that I wanted to be like Rebecca and Jack and you and the rest, he called me a little fool and bade me understand that he had not poisoned me as he was paid to do because it was to his advantage to keep me alive. Courtiers would not assassinate a stray waif, he said; there was wealth for the court's ward somewhere; and when I was restored, I was to remember who had slaved for me. Indeed, indeed, I think that he would have married me, but that he feared it would bar him from any property as a king's ward——"
"Is that all you know?"
"That is all. Why—why—did you promise?"
"What else was there to do, Hortense? You can't stay in this wilderness."
"Oh, yes," says Hortense wearily, and she let the violets fall. "What—what else was there to do?"
She led the way back to the cave.
"You have not asked me how we came here," she began with visible effort.
"Tell me no more than you wish me to know!"
"Perhaps you remember a New Amsterdam gentleman and a page boy leaving Boston on the Prince Rupert?"
"Perhaps," said I.