“I thought you came to me, Rupert, and you held me close, because there was danger, and you told me you were proved at long last. I always trusted you to show them—how big a Stuart heart you had.”
The master glanced at her. She was good to see, with the brown, disordered hair that clouded a face soft with sleep and tenderness. And yet he was impatient, as he touched her hand, led her back to her seat under the north window, watched her yield again to the sleep that would not be denied. Then he went to his post; and all the new-found passion in him, all his zest in life, were centred on the strip of snowy courtyard that lay about the great main door. He was captain of this enterprise, and till the siege was raised he asked no easier road of blandishment.
For the next hour there was quiet, except that Martha, the dairymaid, came upstairs with heavy tread; and, when the master went out to learn what was in the doing, he found her setting down a steaming dish on Simon Foster’s knees.
“You were always one for your victuals,” she was saying tenderly.
“Aye,” assented Simon cheerily. “An empty sack never stands up, they say; and who am I to deny it? You’ve a knowledgable way of handling a man, Martha.”
“Well, you’re all I have, Simon.”
“And that willun’t be much to boast of, if this plaguy quiet goes on much longer. I’m fair moiled wi’ weariness, my lass.”
Rupert saw the man, who should have learned riper wisdom by this time, bring down Martha’s head to the level of his own; and he went back to his window, filled with a deep, friendly merriment. And still he trod on air, not knowing how near he lay to the sleep that would not be denied.
And by and by, as he looked out in constant hope that another figure would come stealing into the moonlit open, he heard his mother’s spaniel barking from the far side of the house. The dog had heard, though the master’s duller ears could not, the voices raised in sharp discussion in the stable-yard. News had been brought to Goldstein that the house was resolute and wide-awake, if two dead men from among his lessening band were proof enough; and the pain of his wound roughened his impatience; and he gave certain orders that were to the liking of his troopers, chilled by harsh weather and inaction.
A little later Rupert heard a woman’s step again along the corridor and the pampered crying of a dog. Lady Royd, all in her night gear, with a wrap thrown loosely over it, came into the moonlight of the room, carrying the spaniel underarm.