"Bah!"
"If she discover you, before . . . before . . ."
"Before she is legally my wife? Pshaw! . . . Then of a truth my scheme will come to naught . . . But will you not own, Editha, that 'tis worth the risk?"
"Afterwards?" she asked, "afterwards?"
"Afterwards, mistress," he rejoined enigmatically, "afterwards sits on the knees of the gods."
And with a flourish of his broad-brimmed hat he turned on his heel and anon was lost in the shadows of the tall yew hedge.
How long she stood there watching that spot whereon he had been standing, she could not say. Presently she shivered; the night had turned cold. She heard the cry of some small bird attacked by a midnight prowler; was it the sparrow-hawk after its prey?
From the other side of the house came the sound of slow and firm footsteps, then the opening and shutting of a door.
Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse had played his part for to-night: silently as he had gone, so he returned to his room, whilst in another corner of the sparrow-hawk's nest a young girl slept, dreaming dreams of patriots and heroes, of causes nobly won, of poverty and obscurity gloriously endured.
Mistress de Chavasse with a sigh half of regret, half of indifference, finally turned her back on the moonlit garden and went within.