“Oh, Kyt, art really going? I cannot believe ’tis true.”
“Ay, ’tis very truth.”
She looked up into his dark eyes with a troubled expression. “Tell me, dreamer, why do you depart so secretly, and why, indeed, at all?”
“Secretly,” he answered, with renewed vagueness, “because in secret Destiny works; I for to-day am Fate, and keep these colonists to their duty as Vytal and Mistress Dare have done. Were they to know of the vessel’s proximity, they would in a moment be havoc-struck. Ananias would start an insurrection and incite them to seize the shallop. This must not be. I go alone, or with—”
She interrupted him. “Why, why do you go?”
He raised himself to his full height. “Because a voice, calling me in whispers, so decrees. I shall seek audience with the queen and Raleigh to demand the forwarding of supplies and men to Virginia.” He paused, a look of despondency crossing his face. “But would I could foresee success. Alas! I cannot. Some godless curse rests on this colony, whose spirit is in the very air we breathe.” He looked darkly into the distance, as though the hitherto invisible had come within the range of sight. Then, however, as he heard a sob from the woman beside him, his expression changed. The earnestness of the moment seemed to pall upon him, and he laughed carelessly.
Untying a silken kerchief from her neck, he held it aloft so that it hung lightly on the breeze, its soft ends fluttering toward the sea. “This is the true reason,” he said, inconsequently. “The wind blows eastward.”
Her eyes were smiling now behind her tears. “May not I go thither also?” she asked, breathlessly. “I cannot stay behind. ‘Faith, all the colony hath turned against me. The parson would have me married or banished, were there chance of either fate. Besides—I’d be more comfortable in Southwark,” she added, with a note of hardness in her ever-changing voice.
He pressed her hand pityingly. “As you like, Gyll. ’Tis but natural you desire to return. Neither you nor I were made for this. Our parts were writ to be played in London. I go aboard the shallop within an hour, but it waits too far for you. To-night we’ll anchor to the southward. Do you slip away and await me on the southern shore. Whate’er you do, remember one thing: none must know of our departure. Nay, postpone thy thanks, Gyll, for here comes Vytal by appointment.”