Pale now as Margot herself Gabriel moved aside with her, holding her hands, and looking down into the pathos of those dark eyes which possessed, even as in the days when they were children together, power to still the tumult in his breast—the rebellion of a nature more passionate than her own.
“It is but for this one day, mon Gabriel,” she murmured.
“But for this one day!” he repeated. “And our force is small, and God alone knows where we may be on the morrow. Margot, must it be?”
“Gabriel, it was thou who didst first tell me, when thy heart began to change toward our church, that to break the promised word was to lie, and that to lie was deadly sin. Oh, mon cousin, dost thou not remember?”
“I do, I do!” he groaned, passing his hand over his eyes in unbearable anguish.
“The priest will not harm me,” she went on, “and I shall be with friends—Louis Herbes and his good wife. They will build them a hut close beside the water, so that if chance offer they may return to English soil—dost hearken, Gabriel?”
Gabriel’s face cleared.
“Yes, yes, sweet cousin. I will take a boat—to-morrow—toward the sunsetting—remember.”
“It is well. But, Gabriel, go. See the lambs—they come.”
“I fear them not,” he cried, the warrior spirit awake in an instant; “let them come. Have I not baffled them already many times? I would bear thee through a host of them, my Margot.”