“Ere we had left it five minutes.”
“Good heavens! and you said not a word.”
“It would but have worried you, and had set our friend a looking back, and mayhap tempted him to get his skull split. All other danger was over; they could not see us, we were out of the moonshine, and indeed, just turning a corner. Ah! there is the sun; and here are the gates of Dusseldorf. Courage, l'ami, le diable est mort!”
“My head! my head!” was all poor Gerard could reply.
So many shocks, emotions, perils, horrors, added to the wound, his first, had tried his youthful body and sensitive nature too severely.
It was noon of the same day.
In a bedroom of “The Silver Lion” the rugged Denys sat anxious, watching his young friend.
And he lay raging with fever, delirious at intervals, and one word for ever on his lips.
“Margaret!—Margaret Margaret!”