“Have you got any money?” he asked her next. “Because if you haven’t you can have the half of mine,—not much to speak of, but enough to feed you and put you to bed. I hope to get into some better tavern than the Crow and Arrow.”
“Thank you,” said Garde, looking at him slyly with a tender light of love in her eyes, “I think I have enough for a time.”
“If we stop at the same tavern, and have our meals served together, it will cost you less,” Adam informed her practically, “and besides, I have grown so fond of you, my boy, that I should be sorry to lose sight of you, in the town.”
“But the sooner you lose sight of me, the sooner you will see your sweetheart,” said Garde, with difficulty restraining her lips from curving in a smile.
“Ah, but I shall wish her to know you,” said Adam, generously. “For to no one else save you have I ever been able to talk of my love for her sweet self, and this is something of a miracle. As I think upon it, you do remind me of her often, by your voice, though it is not so sweet as hers, as I may have said before, and by other tokens, which I am at a loss to define. But because of these things, I would fight for you, and with her sweet approval.”
“I am sure of it,” said Garde. “I trust you will have great joy when you find her again. And you may tell her for me, if you will, that——well, that she should love you with her whole soul,——but she does already, I am sure.”
“You are a kind as well as a gentle boy,” said Adam to her gravely. “I am glad it could be no matter to her for me to like you so exceedingly, you being a boy,——but, boy, you do bedevil my brain with your girlish ways. I shall never explain you, I’ll be sworn.”
“Here is where we turn, for the night’s rest,” Garde replied, avoiding the puzzled look which Rust directed to her face. “We have had a pleasant journey of it together. I shall never forget it.”
“Let’s wait till it’s finished before we sum it up,” said Adam. “To-morrow we have a few more hours, ere we reach the town, and these may be the pleasantest of all.”
Yet when the boy said good night to him, after their supper, he felt a strange sense of loss for which he was wholly unable to account.