“I must return,” he whispered; “although never did I go to duty so unwillingly.”
She took his arm and they walked slowly back toward the ball-room.
“Why so silent?” he whispered to her as they walked.
She sighed.
“I have a foreboding,” she answered sadly, “that this undertaking—this secret expedition of which you cannot speak—is one of difficulty and of danger.”
“No, no,” he answered cheerily; “you’re mistaken. But,” he added in a low voice, “were it so, would you care?”
For answer, she looked upward and her glance met his. Softly he whispered to her and more softly still came her whispered reply—a reply that brought the light to his eyes and the hot flush of joy to his cheeks.
It was with that light in his eyes, that color in his cheeks, they passed out of the conservatory into the ball-room. Not ten paces from them as they entered stood a man wearing the uniform of the Imperial Guard. As they walked, he looked after them, with black brows bent and an expression in the dark face that was not good to look upon. He turned sharply at a tap from a lady’s fan upon his arm, the scowl still upon his face.
“Ah, Lady Brooke!”
“A word with you, Milord Ashley,” she said.