"Jacqueline," he repeated, "are you listening?"
She stirred slightly; the pallor left her face. In her gaze shone a light difficult to divine—pity, tenderness, a warmer passion? Where had he seen it before? In the cell when he lay injured; in his waking dreams? It seemed the sudden dawn of the full beauty of her eyes; a half-remembered impression which now became real. Yet even as she looked down his face changed; his eager glance grew dark; he listened intently.
The sound of horses' hoofs beat upon the air.
"Jacqueline!—go!—there is yet time!"
Abruptly she arose. He held out his hand for a last quick pressure; a God-speed to this stanch maid-comrade of the motley.
"God keep you, mistress!"
Standing in the road, gazing up the hollow, she neither saw his hand nor caught his words of farewell. An expression of bewilderment had overspread her features; quickly she glanced in the opposite direction.
"See! see!" she exclaimed, excitedly.
But he was past response; overcome by pain, in a last desperate attempt to regain his feet, he had lost consciousness. As he fell back, above the hill in the direction she was looking, appeared the black plumes of a band of horsemen.
"No; they are not—"