Then the colour came into her face like the sunlight itself. 'Because you love me,' she whispered, shutting her eyes.
And I did not gainsay her.
CHAPTER XXIV.
[MISSING!]
We lay in the osier bed two whole days and a night, during which time two at least of us were not unhappy, in spite of peril and hardship. We left it at last, only because our meagre provision gave out, and we must move or starve. We felt far from sure that the danger was over, for Steve, who spent the second day in a thick bush near the road, saw two troops of horse go by; and others, we believed, passed in the night. But we had no choice. The neighbourhood was bleak and bare. Such small homesteads as existed had been eaten up, and lay abandoned. If we had felt inclined to venture out for food, none was to be had. And, in fine, though we trembled at the thought of the open road, and my heart for one grew sick as I looked from Marie to my lady, and reckoned the long tale of leagues which lay between us and Cassel, the risk had to be run.
Steve had discovered a more easy though longer way out of the willow-bed, and two hours before midnight on the second night, he and I mounted the women and prepared to set out. He arranged that we should go in the same order in which we had come: that he should lead the march, and I bring up the rear, while the Waldgrave, who was still far from well, and whose continued lack of vigour troubled us the more as we said little about it, should ride with my lady.
The night seemed likely to be fine, but the darkness, the sough of the wind as it swept over the plain, and the melancholy plashing of the water as our horses plodded through it, were not things of a kind to allay our fears. When we at last left our covert, and reaching the road stood to listen, the fall of a leaf made us start. Though no sounds but those of the night came to our ears--and some of these were of a kind to reassure us--we said 'Hush!' again and again, and only moved on after a hundred alarums and assurances.
I walked by Marie, with my hand on the withers of her horse, but we did not talk. The two waiting-women riding double were before us, and their muttered fears alone broke the silence which prevailed at the end of the train. We went at the rate of about two leagues an hour, Steve and I and the men running where the roads were good, and everywhere and at all times urging the horses to do their best. The haste of our movements, the darkness, our constant alarm, and the occasional confusion when the rear pressed on the van at an awkward place, had the effect of upsetting the balance of our minds; so that the most common impulse of flight--to press forward with ever-increasing recklessness--began presently to possess us. Once or twice I had to check the foremost, or they would have outrun the rear; and this kind of race brought us gradually into such a state of alarm, that by-and-by, when the line came to a sudden stop on the brow of a gentle descent, I could hardly restrain my impatience.
'What is it?' I asked eagerly. 'Why are we stopping?' Surely the road is good enough here.'
No one answered, but it was significant that on the instant one of the women began to cry.