"Where and when shall it be?" Bevill asked.
"By the Prince's palace at ten of the night. Then are our townsmen in their houses and shortly after in their beds, and the streets are therefore well-nigh deserted. Also our invaders," he went on bitterly, "are all called in at sunset, the town is quiet. Beyond your questioning at the gate there will be naught to impede you."
"Is it agreed on?" Sylvia asked of Bevill.
"As you command," he answered, "it shall be. At ten of the night to-morrow I shall be outside the Prince's palace or no longer alive."
"Ah!" exclaimed Sylvia, shuddering at the very thought of Bevill's being no longer in existence twenty-four hours hence. "Never speak nor dream of it. If I thought there was danger of such horrors would I quit Liége?"
An instant after Bevill had spoken he knew that his words were ill-timed. He recognised that to alarm Sylvia at this moment--the moment when she had decided to set out on the road to England--was madness. Madness, because he knew--he could not help but know--that after the episodes of the last night in the now gloomy and deserted Weiss Haus his own life was in serious danger; not from any violence that Francbois might attempt against him--that, he doubted not, he could meet and overthrow--but from his treachery. And though, soldier-like, he thought but little of his life and was willing to freely set it against the prize that success and increase of honour would bring, he was not willing to set it against the sweet, new-born hopes that had sprung to his heart; against the desire to win this beautiful and stately woman for his wife.
"Yet," he mused, even as he heard Van Ryk telling her how he charged himself henceforth with all care of her property and affairs; how, in truth, he would regard himself as her steward and agent in Liége until brighter days should dawn, "yet, if I am betrayed, if I die here, I lose more than my life, more than that life is worth; while she--ah! no--I may not dream nor hope as yet to win what I desire. Though still--still I fain would hope that this life of mine may grow precious to her--that she would as little part from me as I from her. If it should be so! If it should!"
They had all risen now, and were once more making their way towards the thicket by the stables, Mynheer Van Ryk walking with Madame de Valorme and Bevill by Sylvia's side; and as they went, he said to her:
"There is one fear within my heart, one dread that I would have allayed. May I ask a question, hoping to receive an answer to it from you?"
"Ask," Sylvia replied, looking at him in the starlight, while, since she herself was tall, her eyes were not so far from his but that he could gaze easily into them.