So in the quiet that comes after storm, her dear supple figure still in my arms, Sir Robert Volney came in unexpectedly and found us. He stopped at the door, startled at her presence, and methought a shadow fell on his face. Near to death as I was, the quality of his courage was so fine and the strength of the passion in him so great that he would have changed places with me even then.
Aileen went up to him at once and gave him her hand. She was very simple, her appeal like a child’s for directness.
“Sir Robert, you have already done much for me. I will be so bold as to ask you to do more. Here iss my lover’s life in danger. I ask you to save it.”
“That he may marry you?”
“If God wills.”
Volney looked at her out of a haggard face, all broken by the emotions which stirred him.
A minute passed, two minutes. He fought out his fight and won.
“Aileen,” he said at last, “before heaven I fear it is too late, but what man can do, that will I do.”
He came in and shook hands with me. “I’ll say good-bye, Montagu. ’Tis possible I’ll see you but once more in this world. Yet I will do my best. Don’t hope too much, but don’t despair.”
There was unconscious prophecy in his words. I was to see him but the once more, and then the proud, gallant gentleman, now so full of energy, was lying on his deathbed struck out of life by a foul blow.