"You walk very fast!" said he again, but still she deigned him no
reply; therefore he stooped till he might see beneath her hood.
"Dear lady," said he very gently, "if I offended you a while
ago--forgive me--Cleone."
"Indeed," said she, looking away from him; "it would seem I must be
always forgiving you, Mr. Beverley."
"Why, surely it is a woman's privilege to forgive, Cleone--and my
name--"
"And a man's prerogative to be forgiven, I suppose, Mr. Beverley."
"When he repents as I do, Cleone; and my--"
"Oh! I forgive you," she sighed.
"Yet you still walk very fast."
"It must be nearly ten o'clock."
"I suppose so," said Barnabas, "and you will, naturally, be anxious
to reach home again."
"Home," she said bitterly; "I have no home."
"But--"
"I live in a gaol--a prison. Yes, a hateful, hateful prison, watched
by a one-legged gaoler, and guarded by a one-armed tyrant--yes, a
tyrant!" Here, having stopped to stamp her foot, she walked on
faster than ever.
"Can you possibly mean old Jerry and the Captain?"
Here my lady paused in her quick walk, and even condescended to look
at Barnabas.
"Do you happen to know them too, sir?"
"Yes; and my name is--"
"Perhaps you met them also this morning, sir?"
"Yes; and my--"
"Indeed," said she, with curling lip; "this has been quite an
eventful day for you."
"On the whole, I think it has; and may I remind you that my--"
"Perhaps you don't believe me when I say he is a tyrant?"
"Hum," said Barnabas.
"You don't, do you?"
"Why, I'm afraid not," he admitted.
"I'm nineteen!" said she, standing very erect.
"I should have judged you a little older," said Barnabas.
"So I am--in mind, and--and experience. Yet here I live, prisoned in
a dreary old house, and with nothing to see but trees, and toads,
and cows and cabbages; and I'm watched over, and tended from morning
till night, and am the subject of more councils of war than
Buonaparte's army ever was."
"What do you mean by councils of war?"
"Oh! whenever I do anything my tyrant disapproves of, he retires to
what he calls the 'round house,' summons the Bo'sun, and they argue
and talk over me as though I were a hostile fleet, and march up and
down forming plans of attack and defence, till I burst in on them,
and then--and then--Oh! there are many kinds of tyrants, and he is
one. And so to-night I left him; I ran away to meet--" She stopped
suddenly, and her head drooped, and Barnabas saw her white hands
clench themselves.
"Your brother," said he.
"Yes, my--brother," but her voice faltered at the word, and she went
on through the wood, but slowly now, and with head still drooping.
And so, at last, they came out of the shadows into the soft radiance
of the moon, and thus Barnabas saw that she was weeping; and she,
because she could no longer hide her grief, turned and laid a
pleading hand upon his arm.