The Admiral's Daughter

by Margaret Stuart Lane

'The young mistress is sleeping bravely. Her'll be fresh as a daisy come the morning.'

With her usual gentle politeness, Simone thanked the girl for her services, and closed the door as she went across the gallery to the servants' stairs. Taking up her old position by the bed, Simone looked sorrowfully at the face on the pillow.

Marion was in the same position. Her breathing was that of a child; the strained lines had gone from her face. Simone could have cried aloud on the unkind kindness of fate in ordering her healing so. By the morrow there would be only two clear days left, the third should see the courier returned. As she thought of the gaol, with its impassable walls hiding the sinister, watching shadow, the stout-barred window niches, Simone felt sick at heart. Who could break through such barriers? Two frail girls and an old woman?

Sitting idle was intolerable. Simone stole into Mistress Keziah's empty room, and taking up the sheet Alison had been stitching, bore it back to Marion's chamber. For a couple of hours she sat thus, and it seemed, as each quarter chimed from the church beyond, that the next would be unbearable.

A kitchen-maid brought in her supper, with a message from Mistress Keziah that she would speak with Simone the next morning. So that was the end of another day.

The westering sunlight sloped across the hill, and the golden radiance fell on Simone's pale face as she sat before the generously piled dishes. She drank some milk, and ate a little bread and honey, afterwards resting motionless in a kind of mental and physical apathy. Presently she roused herself, and in unutterable weariness and despondency sought her own bed. For the first time she understood fully just what the strain of waiting had been to Marion. Rather than wait another day, Simone vowed, she would scale those prison walls herself. Her desperate fancy dwelt on the picture until, towards midnight, a restless sleep stole over her. She dreamed of horsemen innumerable bearing down towards her, each carrying a warrant of death. As they neared, the lane down which they rode—the same lane where the coach had foundered—broke into prison yards and opened again. All through her sleep the dream seemed to come and go, making a lifetime of its passing. At length, in a sudden access of horror, she saw that one of the riders charged into her room. She woke with a scream in the grey dawn, to find Marion standing by her bed, shaking her arm.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE SIGNAL

It was almost three o'clock. Marion and Simone, crouched by the window in the little room over the east landing, were watching for the prisoners to come out into the yard. Mistress Keziah had said that it was the custom for them to be given an hour's exercise at that time.

Marion, fully recovered, was strangely quiet. Her anger at the method of her aunt's cure had soon worn itself out. The knowledge that the prisoner was almost within hail absorbed all her thoughts, and she was secretly thankful to find that the day which had passed so idly had not only spared her the ordeal of an explanation to her aunt, but had brought great gain in the way of restored mental and physical strength. Forgetting all that lay behind, she now drove her whole energies forward in one channel.