"Not with you," she replied, and my heart burned with joy at the sound of her voice.
Now and then as we passed into an open space I saw that the feather of her hat waved in the wind, and that the cloak slipped from her shoulders, revealing the gay attire she wore.
"I'faith, you make a pretty man," I said.
"Do I ride like one, Roland?"
"Ay, and you ride like one, too. In truth, so well do you ride that I would e'en like a kiss to assure myself that thou art not some gay gallant who hath come riding with me."
Again we dashed on, until when morning came we had wellnigh reached Barnet, and here I deemed it well to turn aside and make my way through the village of Enfield instead of keeping nearer London. Here we stopped and breakfasted while the horses were fed and groomed. No one cast suspicious eyes upon us, for in truth Constance might have passed as my younger brother, so bravely did she carry herself. Not even the maid of whom Will Shakespeare wrote in the play As You Like It, looked half as sweet and charming as she.
"I would call you Rosalind, only Will's heroine was not half so fair as thee, neither was she half so brave," I laughed as we breakfasted together in the inn.
I saw her lip quiver at this, and the tears well up into her eyes; and then I felt that, although she was as brave as any man—nay, braver than any man I ever knew—she was still a woman. I saw that, while she was fearless and bold in the face of danger, she became trembling and fearful now that the danger was over. Perchance, too, she remembered her father's fate, and thought of her own lonely condition. But that was only for a minute, for her eyes had neither tears nor sorrow in them as they looked up into mine and told me of her love.
By noon we had reached my father's house. I did not come in at the lodge gate, but entered by an unfrequented way. It was by a wicket gate which led through a shrubbery and up to a postern door, a door which was seldom opened in the old days when I lived at home.
My heart seemed ready to burst as I came in sight of the house, for it was now nearly two years since I had seen it; and after all, there is no spot on earth which affects a man as much as the place where he was born and reared.