“Hunger!” he said. “Think of the snipe and teal! Listen to me, Diana. Before God, I will not offend again. Base, black coward that I am! Before God, Diana!”
I gazed at him intently.
“Why have you brought me here, Gogo?”
“Because,” he answered, “there was no nearer and surer refuge.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Ah, child! But you have not heard the story.”
“Well,” I murmured, reassured, though still shy of him, “if you will keep your promise and be good, you shall tell it me by and by.”
He gave a great sigh, and, gently disengaging myself, I stole to the door, while he followed me with his agitated eyes, and peered out. It was Shole, indeed, and the familiar village green that I saw beneath me, looking down the long wintry slope. Quiet and deserted in the chill mists of dawn, no view apparently less tragic, less harmful, could have greeted me. I returned to my companion, who received me with a pathetic relief. He was quite pale and trembling.
“If my arms had the reach of my heart!” he said. “Well, you have come back; and so—for breakfast.”
“Patty’s pot,” said I merrily. “The dear shall put new heart into me, as her wont was.”