FullReads

We were standing now, all three; Lady Glynn a little behind my elbow.

‘Are you going to kill him?’ she asked, and he heard.

For a moment he stared at her stupidly, then at the stream of wine running across the table, then back at her–and, so staring, flung up both hands and plunged forward. His brow, as he fell like an ox, thudded against the chair from which, a moment since, she had arisen.

I caught up a candle. But she was before me and had dropped on her knees beside him. In his fall he had rolled over on his side, and for a moment I supposed her to be busy loosening his collar. But no–as I held the candle close she was feeling in his pockets, and in the light of it she held up a bunch of keys.

‘I am glad you did not kill him,’ she said simply, rising from her knees. ‘There was no need.’

‘No need?’ I repeated stupidly, swaying with weakness.

‘You shall see.’

She slipped by me and from the room. I bent and loosened Sir Luke’s collar, and essayed to lift him, but had to relinquish the effort and drop into a chair, where I sat staring at the fallen wreck. While I stared, still dizzy, I heard the voice of old Pascoe behind me.

‘We can manage it, sir–I think–between us.’ He stepped past me, and together we lifted his master and staggered with him to a couch, where he lay, breathing hard.

Pascoe motioned me back to my chair, where I sat and panted.

While I sat, she came back. I did not hear her approach, but only her voice whispering to me to come: and I followed her forth from the room and out into the corridor, and along the corridor to the porch as a man walking in his sleep.

There was a lantern by the porch, and in the light of it my horse stood, saddled and ready.

‘You will take the road up the valley,’ she said, ‘and cross by the second bridge. The road beyond that bears due east and is unguarded.’

‘But what is this?’ I asked, as I put a hand to the pommel of the saddle and felt something hard and heavy slung there beside it.

‘It is the price of the pass, or half of it. There is another bag on the off side, and between them they hold, I believe, six hundred pounds.’

‘That was his price?’

‘That was the price. And now go: take it back to your general.’

‘You must help me to mount,’ said I.

She helped me to mount.

‘The second bridge, you will remember,’ said she, as I found my stirrups.

‘I will remember. Is that all?’

‘That is all: though, if you wish it, I will thank you and say that you have behaved well.’

‘I did not wish it,’ said I, ‘though now you have said it, I am glad. You hate me, I understand.’

‘And I thank you for understanding. Yes, you have behaved well.’

‘Good-night, then, and God bless you!’

I shook rein and jogged out of the courtyard into the mirk and mist. I never saw her again.

Not till years later did I learn that she, too, had left her husband’s roof that night and after (it cannot be doubted) many adventures of which no history has reached me, joined the Court in its exile at the Hague; where, as I am told, she died.

Her husband recovered and lived to accomplish his end by drink. There were whispers against him, but no certain proof that he had ever acted as intermediary in selling the pass. His defenders could always urge his notorious poverty. Before his death he had parted with more than two-thirds of his estate. There was no child to inherit the remainder.

To the end he asserted that his wife had run from him unfaithfully, and was pitied for it. So I hear, at least, and do not care; as I am sure she would not have cared. She had saved his honour, with my poor help, and having saved it, was quit of us both.

I pray the foreign earth may rest lightly on her.