'We will go now, Jasper,' she said at last. 'You are right; we must go; but I can never have been to you what you have been to me.'
Her words cut me like the hangman's lash on the back of prisoner unjustly condemned. It was more than I could bear to see her. It was past my strength after these scourging words to choose the path that was so hard and bitter before the one that was so easy and sweet. I felt driven towards her. I sprang forwards to take her tender form in my arms, and cover her reproachful face with passionate kisses; to show her what she had done; to show her what she was to me—more than honour, more than duty, more than all the world; to show her that I loved her.
I was at her side with arms wide open to enfold her; in one last strife with myself I paused, and like a thunderclap to my strained wits the Sergeant's knock rattled out on the door, and I was saved. Clutching the rapier by my side once more, I turned to see the soldier's tall form appear in the doorway.
'Your bidding is done, sir,' said he.
'Then help Mrs. Waldyve to the saddle,' said I; 'we will walk by her side.'
With hanging head, and never a glance to me, she went with tottering steps to the Sergeant, who lifted her with loving gentleness into the saddle. Then we set forward through the moonlight. Not a word was spoken as we toiled along; not a sound broke the stillness of the night, save the suck of our boots and the horse's feet in the mire. So in silence, each communing with his own thoughts, we came in the first gray glimmer of the dawn to Ashtead, and in silence parted.
CHAPTER XIV
How the next day passed with me I cannot say. I spent it, I know, in my library, pacing up and down and thinking over and over again of all that had happened since last the sun rose.
I remember angrily putting away the divinity books which lay on my table, and taking down others at random. But they would not speak to me as they used, or perhaps I could not hear them for the din of self-reproach in my head.