"I'll see you dead first!" Rupert cried. "I am no rebel!"
Merrylips threw her arm across her eyes. In very truth she thought that Rupert would be killed. She heard men cry out, and she heard them laugh. The sound of their laughter seemed to her more terrible than any threats.
One shouted, "Make him drink now!"
Then Rupert cried shrilly, "Away wi' thee, Merrylips! Run! The window!"
Right beside Merrylips a casement stood open. She looked toward it, but she did not stir. She wondered how Rupert could think that she would run away and leave him.
Beyond the casement she saw the sun slanting peacefully upon the market-place, and through the sunlight she saw a horseman go ambling. He wore a bandage round his head, and in the strong light his chestnut hair was ruddy, like her brother Munn's.
It all happened in a second. Before the noise of laughter and Rupert's shrill cry had ceased, she had leaped on a bench beneath the window and cast herself over the sill. She fell upon the cobbles without. She sprang up and ran stumbling across the market-place.
As she ran, she screamed. She heard her own voice, thin, like a voice in a nightmare:—
"Dick Fowell! Oh, Dick Fowell! Help! Help! Help!"