“I bring news, mistress.”
“Of whom?”
“I bring news of your father, mistress.”
“Of my father!”
It seemed almost too great an effort for Anne to cast back her mind to the stern man whose very existence she had nearly forgotten. In the stress of those terrible weeks, which had called for all that she had of endurance, her former life had grown so vague, so remote that it was almost as if it had never been.
“What of my father?”
Tragedy unspeakable was in the falconer’s face. For the moment, a power outside himself forbade his answering the question. Days and nights had he given to this quest, that a load of misery might be taken from his heart. But now that at last his tireless wanderings had achieved their purpose, a force beyond his own will held him captive.
The falconer knew as he gazed at his young mistress that it was her life he was about to sacrifice in order to save his master’s. It was her youth and her high devotion in the scale, against one who had lived the flower of his years. Surely it behoved him to have a care.
“What of my father?”
The man shook his head impotently.