“Of your goodness, John, don’t ask me anything—don’t ask me anything to-night.”
She broke down utterly, and though she tried to stifle it, the sound of her weeping would not be smothered. Pity of it went to the man’s heart. A great tremor swept across his face. He stretched out an arm between the bars into the darkness of the room.
“Barbe, I ask nothing—I’ll know nothing—till you wish. Don’t weep, dear heart, when I cannot come at you to comfort.”
His tenderness beat in on her, so that she seemed to master herself, only to fall into a new fear, and that lest he should be discovered.
“You must go, John. Why am I keeping you here? If they were to come!”
No words could have made him hardier in his daring.
“Take no care for me, Barbe. This is but the beginning of it all.”
She put up her hands to him in appeal.
“No, no; they would kill you, perhaps!”
“I am not so easily dealt with, dear. Answer me one thing. Some brute struck you to-night?”