"We have neither, Mr. Highwayman," said the other lady in a clear, musical voice, quite free from tremor. "I am a poor widow without a penny in the world, flying from my creditors to take refuge with a relative almost as poor as myself. This is my companion—alack for her! The wage I owe her might make her passing rich if ever 'twere paid—but it never will be."
"Do poor widows travel in coach and four with serving-men and maids?" demanded the highwayman with an incredulous laugh. "Come, ladies, I am well used to these excuses. Do not put me to the disagreeable necessity of setting you down in the mud while I search your carriage and—mayhap—your fair selves."
The lady threw back her hooded cloak, revealing a face and form of rare beauty, and extended two white hands and arms, bare to the elbow and entirely devoid of ornament. In one hand she held a little purse through whose silken meshes glittered a few pieces of money.
"This is all the money I have in the wide world," she said, in a voice of pathetic sweetness. "Take it, if you will, and search for more if you think it worth while—and if you find anything, prithee, share it with me!"
But the highwayman scarcely heard her. Through his mask his eyes were fixed upon her beautiful face with a devouring admiration of which she was quite unconscious. Not that such an expression would have seemed at all extraordinary to her, or otherwise than the natural tribute of any masculine creature to the beauty she valued at its full worth.
"Keep your purse, Madam," he said, and his voice had lost its harshness; "I will take but one thing from you—something you will not miss, but that a monarch might prize—a kiss from those lovely lips."
"A kiss, rascal! Do you know what you ask?" she exclaimed, her sweetness vanishing in haughty anger. "Something I shall not miss, forsooth! What can—"
"Oh! kiss him, Prue; kiss him and let us be gone!" implored her companion. "We shall miss the mail-coach at the cross-roads, and then what will become of us?"
The highwayman leaned against the open carriage-door and watched the struggling emotions flickering over the face of the widow. Anger and disgust were succeeded by scornful mirth, and at last, with a gesture of indescribably haughty grace, she extended her hand, palm downward.
"My hand, Sir Highwayman," she said loftily, "has been deemed not unworthy of royal kisses!"