"It is I, Mistress Calvert, cousin to Governor Brent."
Neville's heart felt as if it were an anvil, and some unseen power were laying on the hammer-strokes thick and fast. The blood surged to his face, and then fell back again leaving it white. She had come. Was he glad or sorry? Pride said, "You are sorry." Love whispered, "You are glad—do not deny it." Pride answered, "Yes, glad of the chance to make her sorry."
"I know not how to deny you, Mistress Calvert," came from without in Philpotts' voice, "but my commands are that none should enter save by the Governor's orders."
"Uncivil fellow!" Neville instinctively felt for his sword, and would have made a trial of his strength without it, but that on the instant he heard that voice, the voice that could make little shivers run from head to foot.
"You are in the right, as usual, good Master Philpotts, and foreseeing that you could not be swayed without the Governor's order, the Governor's order I have brought for a half-hour's talk with the prisoner, you meanwhile to be within call, but not within hearing. See! is't not writ as I have said?" she asked, holding the paper toward him.
"I am not such a churl as to dispute a lady's word," said Philpotts, glad in this chivalrous manner to evade a too severe strain on his powers of reading a written document. "The Governor's order shall be obeyed," and swinging back the door he closed it again behind him and resumed his march from the green pine-tree to the brown one, and from the brown tree back again to the green, watching the yellow sun set behind the distant hills. His taciturnity yielded at last to the extent of one exclamation, "By the Lord Harry, what a coil!"
As Elinor Calvert entered she threw back her sable hood, and her pale, beautiful face, surrounded by its golden hair, shone like the moon against the dark setting of the tobacco-hung rafters. Her only ornament was the diamond crescent at her throat, which glistened as a ray of the setting sun struck upon it. Her eyes were full of unshed tears, and her lips trembled so that she could scarcely control them enough to utter the words she had come to speak. Her hands were clenched tightly, as if by that force alone she held to her resolution.
Inside the door she waited for some word of welcome or greeting. She put up her hand to her throat as if to ease the sorrow which was rising and swelling within. By accident her fingers grasped the crescent, and she clung to it as to a talisman. Neville made no step toward her. He stood leaning against the wall, his arms folded before him. It was as if she were the criminal and he the judge. The silence was intolerable to Elinor.
"Speak to me!" she cried at last, stretching out her hands toward him. Her voice betrayed a dry anguish in the throat, and her breath came in quick, short gasps.