“Forgive me, Lady Alice, if I erred in thinking you would rather command the silence of a gentleman to whom an accident had revealed your secret, than be exposed to the domestics who would have gathered round us.”
Again she half raised herself, and again her eyes flashed.
“A secret with you, sir!”
“But, besides, Lady Alice,” I cried, springing to my feet, in distress at her hardness, “I heard the horse with the clanking shoe, and, in terror, I caught you up, and fled with you, almost before I knew what I did. And I hear it now—I hear it now!” I cried, as once more the ominous sound rang through my brain.
The angry glow faded from her face, and its paleness grew almost ghastly with dismay.
“Do you hear it?” she said, throwing back her covering, and rising from the couch. “I do not.”
She stood listening with distended eyes, as if they were the gates by which such sounds entered.
“I do not hear it,” she said again, after a pause. “It must be gone now.” Then, turning to me, she laid her hand on my arm, and looked at me. Her black hair, disordered and entangled, wandered all over her white dress to her knees. Her face was paler than ever; and her eyes were so wide open that I could see the white all round the large dark iris.
“Did you hear it?” she said. “No one ever heard it before but me. I must forgive you—you could not help it. I will trust you, too. Take me to my room.”
Without a word of reply, I wrapped my plaid about her. Then bethinking me of my chamber-candle, I lighted it, and opening the two doors, led her out of the room.