"Come," he cried. "I can easily take you by the way I came. It is only a step, and in five minutes you shall be as free as I am!"
But, to his great surprise, Beatrix seemed inclined to laugh at him.
"Where should we go?" she asked, refusing to leave her seat. "We should be caught before we reached the city gates, and it would be the worse for us."
"And who should dare touch us?" asked Gilbert, indignantly. "Who should dare to lay a hand on you?"
"You are strong and brave," answered Beatrix, "but you are not an army, and the Queen—but you will not believe what I say."
"If the Queen even cared to see my face, she could send for me. It is three weeks since I caught a glimpse of her, five hundred yards away."
"She is angry with you," answered the young girl, "and she thinks that you will wish to be with her, and will find some way of seeing her."
"But," argued Gilbert, "if she only meant to use your name in order to bring me from Rome, it would have been quite enough to have written that letter without having brought you at all."
"And how could she tell that I did not know where you were, or that I could not send you a message which might contradict hers?"
"That is true," Gilbert admitted. "But what does it matter, after all, since we have met at last?"