“Oh! Gil, Gil, I am most miserable,” she moaned.
“I know it, sweet. Father Brisdone has told me all. But, there, you will listen to me now. Mace, dearest, you will not wed this man?”
“Gil, I was thinking when you came to-night I’d make the Pool my wedding-bed.”
“My own!” he whispered, as he longed to press her in his arms—the arms that clung painfully to the window-sill to keep his face on a level with hers.
“I was so miserable I wished myself dead.”
“But now?” he asked.
“Now,” she said, forgetting all timidity in her joy, as she clung more closely to him, “Now I wish to live.”
“And you will go with me?”
“What? leave my home—my father?” she said, half in amaze that he should propose such a thing, and with all a woman’s inconsistency, though so few minutes before she had thought of fleeing to Father Brisdone to seek a home abroad.
“Yes, when it is no longer a home to thee, sweet. Give me the name of husband, Mace, my own old love. I have but moments to say it to thee. Come with me now from this window. I have half a dozen men waiting. Four shall help to guard you to our hiding-place while two go to the old iron-pits and fetch thence Father Brisdone. He shall wed us at once. Or we will away to my boat in the little river and go down to my ship, where let even the King seek thee if he dare.”