“If you fail?” she repeated questioningly.
“There is still the sea,” I said, with as much under-current of meaning as I could put into tone, looks, manner.
She sighed. “Yes, there is still the sea; but——” and she shook her head despondently.
“Would you dare?” I asked in little more than a whisper.
“I am fettered like a slave—oh, once more to be free!” she sighed.
“Will you dare it now?”
But at that she flinched. “I am talking like a madwoman. It is impossible, impossible.”
“I don’t understand that word when I am in such earnest as now. Sampayo has left Lisbon. I have driven him away. I will sweep every other obstacle out of our path. Miralda?”
She trembled as I uttered her name and took her hand in mine; the colour flushed her cheeks and she stood hesitating with downcast eyes.
“Miralda?” I said again appealingly, hoping she would yield.