"I would not have thee try, Mistress Barbara: 'tis but a coward's way."
"Yet 'tis but for one night," she cried hurriedly. "And I cannot bear this torture of waiting and thinking. Let me not be a coward again. Let me not think. Ah! when I think I see it all; the troopers and the prison and the post, month after month till—— Ah, no, I will not think. Talk to me—tell me—tell me why you are here," she continued, for the first time filled with curiosity as to the reason of his presence.
His heart leaped gladly at her question.
"Do you not know, madame?"
"Indeed no; it cannot assuredly be that you too are a prisoner?"
"Yes. A prisoner even as yourself, condemned for treason."
"You—a traitor. Impossible!" she exclaimed naïvely.
"I thank you for the compliment, Mistress Barbara," he answered with a smile.
"And the sentence?"
"Imprisonment—until to-morrow," he answered lightly.