It was to her dog the Countess Barbara was speaking. Then the jingling of a silver collar. The spaniel was scratching her ear, humbly thoughtful, no doubt, of that great battle in the lake where she had lost the swimming championship to Maggie. A pause of silence followed. And Giles found his hand trembling like a leaf as the shell cooled slowly. Was the beloved voice going to say no more? What had she meant by ‘the end of the journey’? Was he not to learn after all where that journey ended, where she was now?—Where, where, where?
But suddenly the heat glowed up again within his palm. And the words ran on:
‘Sir Giles Waggonwright, the truest man in the royal service. I hope this does not injure him at the Court: failing but once, after succeeding so faithfully and long. They’ll all be wondering what has befallen me—thinking maybe I am dead. My poor father, the good Queen Mother and the King. It is wrong of me to keep them thus in ignorance. Yet it couldn’t be helped. And oh, my Mollie dear, I want so to sit out here on the grass a while longer, before we go in. They will all learn soon enough where we are, even if the Finder could not trace us. It will not matter now, a short while still in freedom, under the stars and the little wide-roaming moon.’
Something that might have been a sob broke into the words. But almost instantly, growing brave and firm again, the voice went on:
‘Yes, soon we’ll go in. You too, my Mollie. I think they’ll let me bring you with me. I’ll ask the Lady Abbess. She was a friend of my mother’s years ago. You shall be a nun too—though you’ll have to be less frisky, even if you don’t wear the veil and gown. Yet we must not delay too long, lest Sir Giles overtake us after all. A few minutes more and we’ll ring the bell at the big gate there . . . We’ll go in. . . . Then we’ll be Sisters, Sisters of Saint Bridget.’
Giles sprang off the bed. Thrusting the shell still warm into his pocket he leapt across the room and pulled the door open.
‘Host!’ he yelled. ‘Hulloa, below there!—Host!’
‘Coming, Sir, coming,’ called a voice in the distance. In another moment the innkeeper’s face appeared, with a candle held beside it, peering open-mouthed from the foot of the staircase.
‘Saddle the black mare,’ Giles shouted. ‘Quick! Don’t stand there gaping. Bring Midnight to the door. Run, I tell you, run!’