The clear eyes that were so unafraid shone like stars through the gray light. “I do not fear death,” she said in a low voice. “Rather death than the whip or a dungeon underground.”
Dismally he realized that there was no answer to this argument. “We will go together, mistress, wherever it be—unless—” a deadly chill corroded the young man’s veins—“I walk back to my prison.”
“No, no,” said his deliverer tensely. “Anything rather than that.”
Every minute it was growing lighter. They crouched under the scanty cover of the laurel-bushes, not knowing which way to turn or what to do. All their senses were strung to catch the alarm they were ever expecting to hear. But the miracle still endured; the alarm was not yet given. Yet it was impossible that it could be much longer delayed.
In despair they crept farther along the wall. They must choose a place for the grisly descent, yet even as they looked far down over the parapet of the wall they hardly knew how to face such a hideous alternative.
“It is certain death for us both,” said Gervase. “It is better that I returned to my prison if you are sure there is no other way of escape.”
“Do you fear the rock?” The firm voice was low and calm.
“For you I fear it, mistress.”
The starlike eyes pierced him with their light. “For myself,” said Anne, “I fear only to be left alive.” Very deliberately she took the dagger from her belt. “Wherever you go,” she said as she offered it by the hilt, “I would have you plunge this into my heart rather than you left me.”
His cold fingers trembled on the hilt of the dagger, but even as they touched it he knew that such a deed was far beyond his present strength. “Better the rock than that,” he said.