“Oh, Judith, Judith!” he exclaimed. “Johan, Johan, and I never for an instant knew it!”
“Ay, Johan, the player’s boy,” she answered. The words were almost a sob, and yet Lindley heard the same tremulous laugh that had rung through the woods the night when Johan had killed the highwayman. “Johan, the player’s boy, and Judith, the play actor!”
“But——”
“No, there is no but,” she answered, quickly. “’Twas that, too, that I was trying to tell you. But I’ve been Johan to you for all this time, though I’ve had to play so many parts. And love did lie in the chance of meeting, too. I loved you when first I laid eyes on you, when I lay feigning sleep in that chair by the hearth, when Lord Farquhart entertained his guests, when you took my part and begged that I might be let to sleep, when you vouched for my conscience. And I think my conscience should have wakened then, but it did not. And I loved you even more that same night when we rode through the moonlit roads together, when you vowed to win Judith’s love in spite of Judith’s hate. See, I’ve the golden crown you threw to Johan to bind your bargain with him.” She drew from her bosom the golden piece of money strung on a slender chain.
Her words had poured forth so tumultuously that Lindley had found no chance to interrupt. Now he said, almost mechanically, the first words that had occurred to him.
“You were the lad asleep in the chair that night?” He was holding her close, as though she might escape him.
“Ye-es,” she answered, faintly, “and—and, oh, Cecil, shall I tell you all? I was Johan all the time, you know. You only saw the real Johan twice; once that night at the edge of our woods, when he told you that I had gone to London, and—and once on the day of the trial, when you saw him asleep at the end of the lane. And—and—of course you know that I disguised myself as the Lady Barbara that night in hopes of gaining a word with Lord Farquhart. I did that well, did I not, Cecil?” There was a touch of bravado in the voice for a second, but it quickly grew tremulous once more. “’Tis harder to be a woman than a man, I think, harder to play a woman’s part than a man’s. And—well, I was the woman in the court who stopped Lord Grimsby’s sentence. ’Twas Lady Barbara’s gown that she had ready for her wedding journey with Lord Farquhart. It was a beautiful gown, did you not think so?” Again the bravado quivered in and out of her voice. “I ruined it outright, for Johan and I shoved it, gown and hat and all, under Star’s saddle cloth, and I rode on it all the way from London to Ogilvie’s woods, with a king’s guard mounted behind for part of the way. I’ve played all those parts, Cecil, and it’s been a wearying, worrisome thing, part of the time, with quick work and rapid changes, but it’s all over now. I’ve learned my lesson and I’ve done with mumming forever.”
“And those are all the parts you’ve played?” Lindley’s question was almost careless, for he was tasting again the girl’s sweet lips.
“No,” she answered, slowly, with long hesitations between the words. “There was one other. But—but must you know all, every one?” For an instant the eyes and lips were mutinous.
“All, every one, sweetheart,” he answered.