"This is no place for you, Lady Geraldine. Why do they bring you hither?"
She answered not, but turned her gaze for a moment towards him, and then dropped her eyes. With an impulse for which he could not account, he covered the fingers which lay upon his arm with his own disengaged hand, and passionate words sprang to his lips.
"Give me only the right, fair lady, and I will save you from them all. I ask only to live and die as your knight—your champion—without wages—without reward!"
Then he was silent. His breath came thick and fast. He felt the quiver of the hand he held. He knew not how long the silence lasted, it was so strangely sweet, so full of mysterious meaning.
"I thank you, sir. I trow that you speak truth, and that your words are not idle froth—gone in a moment—as the words of so many of yonder gallants. But it may not be. I may not give you such a right. A maiden is not free to choose her friends; and the knights of chivalry are long since vanished from the earth. I would that I might call you friend, that sometimes we might meet and hold converse together. I trust that I may learn a good report of you, that one day I may speak with pride of having known you in your youth. But that must suffice us. Let it be enough for both. I may not—"
She hesitated, and her voice died into silence. She spoke with a repressed emotion which he scarcely understood. The tumult of his own heart was such that he could not seek to gauge the depths of her feelings.
"If I may not be your knight, let me at least be your friend—your servant!" he pleaded. "And if there is anything wherein I can serve you—"
She seemed struck by the phrase. She lifted her bent head and gazed earnestly at him; but the words she spoke seemed strange.
"You are the friend of Lord Sandford; is it not so?"
"I have been his comrade these many weeks. He has shown me much kindness and good-fellowship. I owe him gratitude."