She lifted her head with a quick impulse; her mouth parted to speak. But an inexplicable, invincible reluctance to tell him she was already wed thrust back the words.
Rockhurst turned, and taking the loose pieces of paper from the table, gazed at them thoughtfully for a moment, and thrust them into his pocket. Then he rose, and almost gaily:—
“Come, madam,” he said, “your palfrey waits in the cold. Put on your shoes.” As he spoke he took down his sword and buckled it on.
She went forth with him, her finger-tips lightly in his hold, without a word, through the passages of the lone house, through the hall. The door, open to the night, cut a square, brilliant silver upon the inner dimness. Cold, pure airs rushed against them.
The mare, black, steaming, stood patiently, her bridle hitched to a post. There was not a sound of another living thing, it seemed, in all the white-shrouded land. She rested one hand on the saddle-cloth, lifted her foot for his service, and he swung her up with practised ease. She felt the strength of a steel bow in his arm. He folded her in a huge horseman’s cloak; then, without a word, took the bridle to walk by her side.
She looked at him wistfully. Had she dared, she would have invited him to share the saddle. But, dark and grave, he went beside her, and the silence held them.
They moved as in a dream through a dreamland of beauty, a white purity beyond expression. Above, in the pine trees, the wind choired; far out over the waste it sighed. Somewhere very far away, yet strangely distinct, Christmas joy bells were ringing.
The starry sky that domed this wonderful world was still more wonderful. Diana neither felt the cold, nor measured the space she traversed, nor the flight of time. She was another self; she would have asked no greater boon than to journey on through all this splendour, with the vision of his face cut in grave beauty against the white world, to meet the glance of his watchful eye now and again, to have the touch of his hand, kind and steady, upon her knee, when the road was rougher and the mare stumbled. She knew that at that unknown inn door, down in the valley, would come the parting, and her heart contracted.
The little village seemed asleep. The inn itself looked deep in slumber, with barred windows, its every gable huddled under the thick blanket of snow; only a wreathing smoke from the chimney-stack to tell of some watchfulness within.