She buried her face in her hands, and the tears trickled through her fingers. The sacrifice which this man contemplated was not to be hidden from her. He would give his life that her husband might live.
“You shall not go,” she exclaimed earnestly. “Brandon, have I no right of our friendship? You will not meet my husband to-morrow.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Would you have them say that the Englishman is a coward, Beatrix?”
The answer frightened her. The culminating hour of her suffering was there in that room. Her tears, falling fast upon her white face, seemed to burn Brandon’s fingers. He would have given his life to bring laughter to those eyes he loved.
“Let us be sensible,” he continued, with a great effort to control himself. “What can I do? What other course is there? If your husband will make it a question of my honour, am I to let that, the honour of an Englishman, be the sport of every fool in Strasburg? Of course, I must go. The rest is in God’s hands. I shall do my best for your sake and my own.”
He could give her no other answer. She might take from the house nothing but this truth, that the destiny of him for whom she would have made the ultimate sacrifice was in God’s keeping.
“I shall never forget, Brandon—never to my life’s end,” she said as she left him.
“I trust there will be nothing to remember, Beatrix. You are the brave one to come through the city at such a time; you must go back at once. I ought to send one of our fellows with you, but under the circumstances I suppose it’s best not. Perhaps Watts will bring good news before morning. If you are going to his house now, you will hear what he has to say and might let me know. I can’t believe that your husband is serious—it would be too grotesque.”
She did not answer him, but at the door she stooped suddenly and kissed his hand.