"This for the last. He bears your miniature about him. I will be sworn he will know your lineaments well long ere he reaches Liége. And still one more last word. In your fair hands will be all his earthly chances, even unto his life; his future career, when he has found you. Make no false step that may mar his plans; hesitate not when he suggests the road to safety; hamper him not. Follow where he will lead you; it will not be astray. That soon may I welcome you to Carey Villa is my prayer. That is if I, who long to draw the sword against these French once more, be still thwarted and refused. Farewell. Out of my love for your dead father and mother and your young self, I pray heaven to prosper you.
"Peterborough and Monmouth."
Sylvia let the letter fall to her lap as she finished the reading of it, and sat gazing out of her window across the river beyond the garden wall, while watching, without seeing, the stars that twinkled in the skies; while listening to, without hearing, the nightingale answering his mate or the swirl of the water against the bank.
"All his earthly chances, his life, his career in my hands," she whispered at last, "when once he has found me. Alas! on me there falls a heavy charge. And 'hesitate not when he suggests the road to safety.' Ah, heaven, what shall I do?"
As still she pondered over these words she became almost o'erwrought; but suddenly it seemed as though some swift decision, some decisive banishment of all doubt, had come to her mind. Springing up from the deep chair in which she had been sitting for so long, she went to the window and out on to the great stone balcony which it, in common with all the other windows on the front, possessed: and stood there, gazing towards the city in which, one by one, the lights were rapidly becoming extinguished.
"His life," she murmured once again, "his earthly chances in my hands. His--the life, the chances of one so brave and gallant as he! Ah! and my lord bids me not mar him, not thwart him, but, instead, follow him where he leads. And still I hesitate--or--do I hesitate?" she went on, whispering to herself.
Then, an instant later, she exclaimed, "What am I? What? That which I averred to-night I was not? A selfish woman! Am I that? Am I? Because I am not in personal danger shall I forget the awful, hideous peril in which he has placed himself in undertaking this task? Nay, never," she said now. "Never! Never! Perish the thought! To detain him here, as detain him I shall if I refuse to go, means detection, ruin, death for him. Oh! oh! the horror of it! And on my head! But to go--if heaven above prospers us--may mean at least escape from this place, may doubtless mean the reaching of the English or Dutch forces. Safety! Safety for him! I am resolved." While, as Sylvia spoke, she struck the stone parapet of the balcony lightly with her hand. "Aye, determined. To-morrow--for to-morrow I shall surely see him--I will tell him so. I will tell him that I fear for my safety--the pretence is pardonable where a brave man's life is at stake--that we must go. All, all is pardonable so that he be saved!"
On the morrow she did see him again, though not as early as she had anticipated she would do. Yet she knew there was a reason for his absence, and that a strong one.
From daybreak there had been a strange, unaccustomed stir through all the city--a stir that made itself noticeable even here on the outskirts. The Liégeois seemed to have arisen early, even for them, and were gathering at street corners and on the stoops of their quaint houses, and under market-halls that stood on high wooden posts. Also, on the river, there was more movement than usual; boats were passing up and down more continuously than they had done before; all was life and movement.
Sylvia, who had herself risen early after a somewhat disturbed night, was now regarding as much of this as possible from her balcony. On the opposite bank she could see the rays of the morning sun strike on some objects that glistened and sparkled beneath it, and recognised what those things were--breast-pieces, corselets, the lace on scarlet or blue coats, the scabbards of swords, and, often, the bare swords themselves. She heard, too, the sounds of drums beating and bugles sounding; while, from across the water, there came orders, issued in sharp, decisive tones, and, next, pontoons filled with soldiers crossing the river and disembarking at various points on the other side.