"Have you anywhere to go where you will be safe?" asked Marie.
"Nowhere," said Wat. "I should indeed like to find my comrade, John Scarlett, but if he be not in his lodgings, I dare not go to the camp to seek him."
"Come with me," said Little Marie. "I will hide you safe and bring your friend to you. For I also am your friend, though you think it not—and, indeed, care not even if you did believe it."
"But indeed, and in God's truth, I do count you my friend," said Wat; "for who but you, Little Marie, during all these black days, has so much as thought upon poor Wat Gordon?"
At his kind words Marie bent her head, and for the first time in her life her heart was filled with the fresh spring-water of purest pleasure. And what wonder if a little of it overflowed into her eyes?
[CHAPTER XVII]
JACK SCARLETT CALLS HIMSELF A FOOL
Wat and his companion passed along the deserted streets of Amersfort, keeping carefully to those which were darkest and least frequented. For a space neither spoke. But as they were crossing a wide, deserted square, the Little Marie broke the silence with a startling speech.
"I think by this time he will be dead," she said, simply, as though she had said that it rained.