CHAPTER VII.
FATE AT WORK.
"And, for the ways are dangerous to pass,
I do desire thy worthy company
Upon whose faith and honour I repose."
Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Harrison took Audrey's hand and led her back into the kitchen. For a minute he held her hand, and a curious memory came to him of how he had once picked up a little bird that had fallen from its nest, and how softly the little live thing had nestled in his palm. Then he spoke gently—
"Mistress Audrey, you must not stay here longer alone."
"No," she gasped. "No, I will go speedily. But no one was ever uncivil to me before in all my life. All the folk about here reverence our very name. I will keep down at the cottage with old Molly till I am ready to depart."
"May I ask you what delays your journey, madam?" he asked.
"Faith!" she answered, smiling through some tears, "because I liked my own company too little to travel forth with no better. I have delayed that perhaps I might hear of honest folk, travelling at least so far as Rotterdam, who would bear me company. But I may not tarry much longer or all my money will be spent, so indeed I will now be gone with all speed."
Harrison looked at her. Could any man, with a spark of chivalry in his breast, endure to think of this bright young creature going forth alone, to cross half the world, as ignorant of the perils that might surround her as though she were still the child he had pulled out of the lily pond? Could he forsake his little playfellow?
Richard was not in the habit of hesitating. "Mistress Audrey," he said eagerly, "why cannot you take your journey on Thursday when I do, and let me be as your brother to guard you? God do so to me, and more also, if I bring you not safe to your father's hands. Will you not take me for your brother, Audrey? For the sake of old times, and the memory of those we both did love and reverence, you will trust me?"