And the girl seeing, understanding by his words, that he believed her, was happy.
After this they were silent a little while, though each was thinking, in a different way, upon the same thing. He, of what a thousand pities it was that a brave girl such as Anne Pottle should have ruined her future to obtain revenge; she, of what the future might bring--a future that, she could scarcely have told why, she dreaded and looked forward to with extreme fear.
"There are two persons," she whispered now, unconsciously drawing a little closer to her lover's arm even as she did so, "two persons whom, if he had the power to injure, he would. Geoffrey, you know those two?"
"You and I, sweetheart, is't not so? Well, what can he do--this discredited, ruined rogue? What! We shall be man and wife soon now, since there is no truth in the report that I take my ship to join Boscawen; since, too, it seems likely that she and I are doomed to inaction. Ah! if Admiral Hawke could but bring the French to action nearer home and I might be with him. Then--then--there would be a bright future before me."
As he spoke of their being man and wife the girl's heart gave a great leap. Surely, she thought, he must know how much she, too, desired that; and still, as thus she thought, she drew closer to him. But, even as she did so, she whispered:
"How that man can injure you or me I know not, my own. Yet--yet--I saw his face to-day, saw the look, the hideous look of rage and spite, he cast at you--and--oh! oh! my love," she wailed, "I fear, I fear."
"Fear nothing," he whispered back. "Fear nothing. He is a broken, bankrupt knave, and I am a king's officer; while you are to be my wife. He is harmless."
[CHAPTER IX.]
THE END OF THE FIRST ACT.
"The question now is," said Lewis Granger to Beau Bufton that night, "what is to be done? How are you, and I, which latter is perhaps of more considerable importance, to continue to exist? I have had no money for a long time, and in a short time you also will have none. What do you intend to do?"