"I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows;
Quite over-canopied with luxurious woodbine,
With sweet musk roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania.
"Believe me, I have an excellent memory—for some things."
They walked together in silence a little way, and dreamed, perchance, that they were wandering in Oberon's realm with Hermia and Lysander. Then Sylvia, stealing a shy glance at the tall figure by her side, acknowledged that once she filled the rôle of Titania in a schoolroom version of the play.
"We had no man," she said, "but the masks and costumes served us well. After a day's study I could be a Fairy Queen once more.
"I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again; Mine ear is much enraptured of thy note——"
She stopped suddenly. The next lines were distinctly amorous. He laughed with ready appreciation of her difficulty, but generously provided a way out.
"Poor mortal!" he tittered. "And must I wear an ass's head to be in character?"
A loud report, and then another, brought them back rudely from a make-believe wood near Athens to a peril-haunted park in an English county. For the second time that night Sylvia knew what fear meant. Intuitively, she shrank close to the strong man who seemed destined to be her protector; and when an arm clasped her again, she cowered close to its sheltering embrace.
"Oh, what is it?" she wailed in terror.
"It is hard to say," he answered quietly, and the confidence in his voice was the best assurance of safety he could have given. "Those shots were fired from some sort of rifle, not of the same caliber as that which was used this morning, but unquestionably a rifle. Perhaps it is one of these modern pistols. I don't wish to alarm you needlessly, Miss Manning, but there is some probability that the police have discovered the man who killed Mr. Fenley, and there is a struggle going on. At any rate, let us remain out here in the open. We shall be as safe here as anywhere."