“My lord,” she said, “will you never grant me that one little prayer of mine—to spare poor birds, and make those cruel gaze-hounds run down one another?”
“I shall never see the gaze-hounds more,” he answered petulantly; “my time for sport is over. I must set forth for the war to-day.”
“To-day!” she cried; and then tried to say a little more for pride’s sake; “to go to the war to-day, my lord!”
“Alas! it is too true. Either I must go, or be a traitor and a dastard.”
Her soft blue eyes lay full on his, and tears that had not time to flow began to spread a hazy veil between her and the one she loved.
He saw it, and he saw the rise and sinking of her wounded heart, and how the words she tried to utter fell away and died within her for the want of courage; and light and hard, and mainly selfish as his nature was, the strength, and depth, and truth of love came nigh to scare him for the moment even of his vanities.
“Frida!” he said, with her hand in his, and bending one knee on the moss; “only tell me that I must stay; then stay I will; the rest of the world may scorn if you approve me.”
This, of course, sounded very well and pleased her, as it was meant to do; still, it did not satisfy her—so exacting are young maidens, and so keen is the ear of love.
“Aubyn, you are good and true. How very good and true you are! But even by your dear voice now I know what you are thinking.”
Lord Auberley, by this time, was as well within himself again as he generally found himself; so that he began to balance chances very knowingly. If the king should win the warfare and be paramount again, this bright star of the court must rise to something infinitely higher than a Devonshire squire’s child. A fine young widow of a duke, of the royal blood of France itself, was not far from being quite determined to accept him, if she only could be certain how these things would end themselves. Many other ladies were determined quite as bravely to wait the course of events, and let him have them, if convenient. On the other hand, if the kingdom should succeed in keeping the king in order—which was the utmost then intended—Aubyn Auberley might be only too glad to fall back upon Frida.