"It would be safest, I think, for him to stay here for a few days," Barbara proposed seriously. But the mutinous pout, and glance of arch defiance with which Prue received her suggestion, provoked her to hearty laughter, and she received Robin's thanks for her protection and the farewells of both her guests with an air of such thorough comprehension, that Prue felt constrained to whisper in her ear, "I will come to confession to-morrow, dear Gossip," and blushingly hurried away on Robin's arm.
Late as it was, they lingered on the way and managed to eke ten minutes' walk into forty. Robin had so much to say—so many vows of eternal fidelity to pledge, and such repeated assurances to give of his swift return—that it was not until a near-by church-clock struck two, that Prue quickened her steps a little, and declared with a sigh that the parting moment had really come.
"You will be careful, dear Robin," she pleaded. "Do not run any risks, and if we can not meet again safely before you leave for France, write me by some sure hand, and I will do the same. Remember—I forbid you to attempt to visit me—but oh! I shall count the hours until I see you again."
With the prospect of a long and perhaps fatal parting, their farewells were not soon over; each last kiss was but an excuse for one more, until the tramp of the approaching night-watch warned them of the danger of delay, and Prue tore herself from his arms and without trusting herself to a backward glance, hurried into the house.
CHAPTER XXV
A CONFESSION
It was Peggie who, after some hours' anxious watching, opened the door without waiting for Prue's knock. She had long ago persuaded the sleepy and unreluctant James to retire to bed, and settling herself beside the dim lamp with a book, uncomplainingly resigned herself to a tedious and solitary vigil.
She had passed an evening not without excitement, for her grandmother's searching and persistent inquiries into Prue's mysterious behavior were not to be evaded, and some kind of explanation was inevitable. So, ingeniously substituting Captain de Cliffe, the emissary of King James, for Captain Freemantle, the highwayman, Peggie admitted that Prue and he had met "in the North," that after his arrest she had visited him in Newgate Prison, and that although now an outlaw and fugitive, steeped in Jacobite plots and charged with state secrets and compromising documents, he had played an important part in her recovery of the queen's necklace. In fact, she had contrived, without desperately straining the truth, to surround Robin with an aura of heroism and loyalty that had enlisted the old countess' sympathy for him, almost to the extent of preparing her to sanction Prue's marriage.
Having skilfully wrought her up to this point. Peggie had retired, leaving her revelations to work upon Lady Drumloch's long-dormant but far from extinct passion for the cause which had robbed her of husband, sons and worldly possessions, and left her nothing for the consolation of her declining years but unrecognized devotion to the most ungrateful of dynasties.
Too excited to think of bed, the cousins were still eagerly exchanging confidences, when Prue stopped abruptly and listened. Peggie was hurrying on with her story, but Prue checked her with a warning hand.