"Nor to caress you."
"Nor speak of love."
"Nor speak of love."
"And ... that is all," she faltered.
"No, not all. I swear to love you always, never to forget you, never to prove unworthy in your eyes, never to wed; living, to honor you; dying, with your name upon my lips."
She had stretched out her arms towards me as though warning me to stop; but, as I spoke slowly, weighing each word and its cost, her hands trembled and sought each other so that she stood looking at me, fingers interlocked and her sweet face as white as death.
And after a long time she came to me, and, raising my hands, kissed them; and I touched her hair with dumb lips; and she stole away through the starlight like a white ghost returning to its tomb.
And long after, long, long after, as I stood there, broke on my wrapt ears the far stroke of horse's hoofs, nearer, nearer, until the black bulk of the rider rose up in the night and Sir Lupus came to the porch.
"Eh! What?" he cried. "Sir George away with the Palatine rebels? Where? Gone to Stanwix? Now Heaven have mercy on him for a madman who mixes in this devil's brew! And he'll drown me with him, too! Dammy, they'll say that I'm in with him. But I'm not! Curse me if I am. I'm neutral--neither rebel nor Tory--and I'll let 'em know it, too; only desiring quiet and peace and a fair word for all. Damnation!"