Her eyes filled with tears.
"Nay," she answered sadly. "Thou art sober now."
The fresh air aided what the shock of her words had begun. He mounted, heavily, yet in feverish desperate haste, whirled his horse about with scarcely a word of farewell to her, and struck the heavy spurs deep. The beast sprang forward, with a shower of sparks from the cobbles.
Sada, returning from the door, ran into the arms of a thin slip of a girl, white-faced and with burning eyes, who caught her and cried desperately:
"What said he of Nicanor? What have they done to him? Does he live still?"
"Peace, child!" said Sada. "Now he hath thought for nothing but this thing which he hath done, and I with him. But last night he did tell me that this friend of his, thy lover, hath been sent to the mines, and that he had been of the guard."
"And I not to know!" cried Eldris, bitterly. "He might have told me how he looked and what he said; and now he hath gone, and I may not ask him—"
"Ay, and I think that I shall never see him more. For surely his lord will slay him when he knows what he hath done," said Sada.
Suddenly she put her head on Eldris's shoulder and wept; and Eldris, by way of showing sympathy, having love sorrows of her own, put her arms about her and wept also.