"No, no!" she moaned, turning her face away so that the others should not see her fast falling tears. "Not that! Never! Ah, it cannot be!"
"I pray it may not be so; but, Sylvia, if happier days shall ever dawn, if some day I may stand face to face with you again; if I should then dare to tell you all that is in my heart? Ah!" he exclaimed, as now he felt her hand touch his beneath the long, dark riding-cloak she wore. "Ah! am I answered?"
"Yes," she whispered, "answered as none shall ever be again," and turned her face away--from him this time, so that not even he should see it.
Meanwhile, whatever emotion De Violaine and the Comtesse may have experienced in meeting under such strange circumstances, circumstances so different from those of other days, when he who now commanded besought pity, and she who was now almost a captive could not vouchsafe mercy to her then captive, they had at least obtained control over themselves.
Quietly, with the easy calm of that old French noblesse which, above all things, permitted no emotion to be apparent, the Governor had advanced towards Madame de Valorme and, in a few well-chosen words, had informed her that matters which had come to his knowledge prevented him from allowing her to use her right of quitting the city at present, or of leaving Liége until she had answered some questions satisfactorily.
"What matters? What questions, monsieur?" the Comtesse asked.
"Firstly," M. de Violaine said gravely, "the reasons for which you are desirous of travelling at this moment. It is an unhappy time for ladies to select for setting out upon a journey. They might," he added, with significance, "come into contact with the English or some other of our enemies; they are all around."
For a moment the Comtesse looked at the Governor; then, seeing that the others in the room were not close, she said:
"Have you, a De Violaine of our unhappy province, forgotten how the eyes of all there are turned towards England? Even though I should 'come into contact' with the English would that be harmful to me, or those of whom I am one?"
"I have not forgotten that I am a soldier, a servant, of France," the other answered. "As one who has sworn a soldier's duty to his King I must, for the time, forget all else. Madame la Comtesse, I ask of you to return to the house from which you set out and remain there. You have been denounced to me as one who is desirous, for a purpose of which I know as well as you, of obtaining an audience of Lord Marlborough."