“And it was you who helped him to escape!” said Jane. “I know now that it could have been no one but you.” She laid her fingers lightly on his arm as she said these words, and looked up full into his eyes. They both stood in the soft glow of the lamplight close to the open window. In Jane’s eyes and face at this moment there was an expression—an indefinable something, tender and yet pathetic—that thrilled Tom as he had never been thrilled before, and told him, in language which could not be mistaken, that he was loved.
“Lionel Dering and I are friends. He saved my life. What could I do less than try to save his?”
“I wish that I had been born a man,” said Jane, inconsequently, with a little sigh.
“In order that you might have gone about the world assisting prisoners to escape?”
“No—in order that I might try to win for myself such a friend as you are to Mr. Dering, or as Mr. Dering is to you.”
“But your mission is a sweeter one than that of friendship: you were sent into the world to love.”
“That is what men always say of women. But to me, friendship always seems so much purer and nobler than love. Love—as I have read and heard—is so selfish and exacting, and——”
“Jane, dear, where are you?”
Jane gave a start, and Tom sank back into the shade. “Coming, dear, in one moment,” cried Jane. Then she whispered hurriedly to Tom: “Be here at half-past eleven to-night with Mr. Dering.” She gave him her fingers for a moment and was gone.
For four days and four nights Lionel Dering lay in hiding at Pincote. Jane waited upon him herself, and so carefully was the secret kept that no one under that roof—inmate, guest, or servant—had the slightest suspicion of anything out of the ordinary course.