CHAPTER XXXV
QUITS
Hemmed in by a compact little group of soldiers at the foot of the stairs, and with three men on guard at the head of it, Bathurst and Patience had but a few minutes in which to live these last brief moments of their love.
She clung passionately to him, throwing aside all the haughty reserve of her own proud nature: conquered by her great love: a woman only, whose very life was bound up in his.
"They shall not take you!" she moaned in the agony of her despair. "They shall not.... I will not let you go!"
And he held her in his arms now, savouring with exquisite delight this happiest moment of his life, the joy of feeling her tender form clinging to him in passionate sorrow, to see the tears gathering in her blue eyes, one by one, for him and to know that her love—her great, measureless, divine love—was at last wholly his.
But the moments were brief, and the Sergeant below was already waxing impatient. He drew her gently into a dark angle of the stairs, up against the banisters, and taking the packet of letters from his pocket, he pressed them into her hand.
"The letters! quick!" he whispered. "God guard you and him!"
"The letters?" she murmured mechanically.
"Aye! I can do nothing now ... but try to see the Duke of Cumberland before you go to London, show him the letters.... He may be in this village to-day ... if not, you can see him at Wirksworth.... He has power to stay execution even if your brother is arrested ... he might use it, if he had seen the letters..."