"And, if he were different," Bevill asked quietly, "would your sentiments be also different?"
"Oh--oh!" Sylvia exclaimed, "how can you ask? Yet it is true you do not know him; you have not seen him yet. Doubtless you will do so, however, if I am compelled to accept the hospitality of his kinsman's house."
"Yet need there be no such compulsion. You will not have forgotten what Lord Peterborough's desires are, what I am here for. To take you away from Liége. Liége that, it is true, has not been harmful to you as yet, but that may now become terribly so. The Earl of Marlborough must be on his way here by this time; he may be in the Netherlands by now; when he comes, war will be carried on in terrible earnest. Will these French, who do but lie around this city at present, be considerate for those who are within its walls when they themselves are between those walls and the troops of the Allies?"
"For myself I do not fear. I am a woman, and therefore safe; but----" "But--yes?"
"The risk will be terrible!"
"The risk? You are safe, yet fear the risk?"
"Not for myself," Sylvia answered with a half-smile; then, changing her tone, speaking once more now in her calm, steady voice, she continued: "Mr. Bracton, do you deem me a heartless, selfish woman thinking only of her own safety? I pray not. Nay," seeing that he was about to reply, "I entreat you, let me speak." After which she went on: "For me there is little or no danger here. Your cousin, who has ever had kindly thoughts for me, has overrated the danger in which I stand. I repeat there is no danger. But--what of you? In what a position has he placed you?"
"Ah! never think of it. What care I for danger? And--has he not told you in the letter I was bearer of that I courted danger? I asked for this office on which I now am. I besought him to let me be the messenger who should reach you, who should be, if not the man who saved you, at least the one who should accompany you, help you, serve you in your journey to England."
"You are very brave," the girl said, looking up at him as now he stood before her, since he had risen and taken up his hat, knowing that, because the night had come, it was time he left her--"brave and gallant. From my heart I thank you."
"No thanks are due. I do not deserve them. Do you know my unhappy circumstances, and how I hope to mend them? Do you know how I, who held not long ago the position I loved--the one I had hoped for since I was a boy----"