Spellbound and trembling with excitement, she watched Cyril climb up into one of the seats. Cyril was going to fly to the Germans, she knew it now, to obey the commands which had been brought last night by the German officer, commands to come to Germany and explain his failure to deliver his secret message to Rizzio. They suspected him and yet he was going to face them. It was desperate, foolhardy, insane. He would never come back. Not victory, but death—that was what it meant. She ran out to the very edge of the rocks, shrieking his name, but the sounds were lost in the fearful din of the motor below. The explosions echoed and reëchoed in the gorge which seemed to quiver with the volume of sound. Not a head from below was turned up to look at her and she had a sense of her own unimportance in the immensity of Cyril’s viewpoint. She saw the yellow machine start slowly down the incline, gathering momentum as it ran until it left the runway and rose magnificently, its engine roaring steadily, clearing the surf and rocks and heading straight into the growing day.
O God! That she should have suspected him of anything base and dishonorable—a man who could face death as he was doing, as he had been doing for months. Cyril—the Yellow Dove. There could be no doubt of it, for she had seen with her own eyes. She understood now many things that had been a mystery before; why he could not speak to her; the reasons for his occasional absences, for his air of indifference, for his coolness in the face of adverse criticism. She understood about John Rizzio and the reasons why Cyril had wanted her to take such precautions in getting safely back to Ashwater Park, precautions which she had disregarded. But what mattered about her when Cyril every day, every hour for months had taken chances against death, the most ignominious death of all!
Her heart was big with pride in him and she followed the Yellow Dove with her gaze, now rising high and diminishing rapidly in the mist, her soul in her moist eyes and on [her lips] which [were whispering words that she hoped could follow him into the distance]. Her Cyril, still hers, and England’s—the Honorable Cyril whom the world had come to know as the Yellow Dove.
[“Her lips ... were whispering words that she hoped could follow him into the distance.”]
She stood in the shelter of the rocks, for she knew now in which way her duty to Cyril lay, and waited until the aëroplane was but a speck against the sky, when she turned with a sigh which was almost a gasp of weariness and walked slowly toward her horse. The ride before her was long, but by good riding she might still reach Kilmorack House before Lady Betty’s guests were up. Otherwise her reputation was gone. She knew that, for she could make no explanation of any kind. On that she was——
Quick footsteps behind her—her arms caught from behind—a glimpse of a strange face and then something white over her head—a pungent odor and—unconsciousness.