"It's true—and yet we swore!" She leaned forward to him. "And you—aren't you afraid of the Red Star?"
"We Essex men aren't afraid, we haven't enough imagination," he answered, smiling again.
She threw herself back, crying low: "Ah, if we could strike one blow—just one—for the oath we swore and for Monseigneur! Then perhaps I should be content."
"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.