As the tale proceeded Will kept up a constant fire of interjections, such as "That was well thought on!" "Bravely! my lad!" and "Well done, Glenkens!" But presently Maisie left her seat, and came round to sit beside Wat as he began to tell of entering alone at midnight into the dark house of Brederode with the unknown danger before and the three traitors behind. All the time Kate sat still, saying nothing and eating nothing, her lips a little open and tremulous, and her dark eyes shining with a light in them like a sunbeam in the still water of a sea cave.
And when it came to the telling of the combat, and the little chance of life that he had, it so fared that Wat raised his eyes to Kate's, and lo! tears were running silently down her face and falling unregarded on her white gown.
In a moment more she had risen and left the table, slipping like a gleam of light into the next room.
Maisie looked up with much astonishment as she caught the waft of the girl's gown.
"Why, Kate!" she exclaimed, and without another word sped after her. When she reached the little room where Kate slept, she found the girl standing by the window, leaning her head against the thin curtain. She kept her back to her friend, and did not turn round at her entrance. Maisie carefully closed the door and went up quickly to Kate. Silently she put her arm about the slim and supple waist.
"I—I am not crying—I am not indeed!" said Kate, a little indignantly, putting her hand on her friend's wrist as if to push it away.
"No—no, of course you are not," said Maisie, making (to say the least of it) an affirmation the truth of which was not wholly obvious. For the girl's tears dropped steadily upon her white gown, a great one even falling warm upon Maisie's hand at her waist, while all her slender body was shaken with sobs.
"It was only—" Kate began, and then stopped.
Maisie sighed as she sat down on the white bed, which, as was its occupant's custom, had been made up with military precision quite an hour before. She drew Kate down beside her gently till the girl's head rested on her shoulders.
"There, there, my lamb," she whispered, soothingly, when at last Kate found what most she wanted—a soft and comfortably sympathetic surface to cry upon. Maisie's hand passed lightly over the shapely head with its straying and enticing thatch of dark love-locks, and her voice crooned and cooed over her friend like a dove over its mate in the nest. Then for a long time she continued to hush the girl in her arms, as if she had been but a little ailing child.