“I cannot!—I will not! Do not ask me again! In the ‘old heroic days’ you are so fond of quoting, a true knight performed his task before he ventured to sue for his reward.”
“And then?—and then, Britomarte?”
“He did not always get it,” answered the man-hater.
Justin bowed gravely to her and smiled quietly to himself.
They were walking away from Lond’s Rock, where, indeed, they had already lingered too long; for the tide was now rising rapidly, threatening to cut off their retreat from the main.
CHAPTER VI.
BRITOMARTE’S PLAN.
“But what then will you do, my child? I am an humble minister of God, even in his beneficent aspect of Father to the fatherless. As such I invite your confidence; trust in me.”
These words were spoken by the old Lutheran clergyman to the beautiful man-hater, as he bent kindly over her, holding her hand, on the morning after their departure from the Rainbows.
They were on board the Leviathan and within a few miles of Washington.
He had been urging upon her the oft-repeated, oft-rejected invitation to make his house her home. For the last time she gratefully declined the offered hospitality.