"Of what are you afraid?" he asked her.
"I am not afraid," she answered in husky accents that belied her.
Perhaps to reassure her, perhaps because he thought of his companions lurking in the thicket and cared not to have them for his audience, he suggested they should go a little way in the direction her cousin had taken. She wheeled her horse, and, side by side, they ambled up the dusty road.
"The thing I have to tell you," said he presently, "concerns myself."
"Does it concern me?" she asked him coldly, and her coolness was urged partly by her newborn fears, partly to counterbalance such impression as her illjudged show of gladness at his safety might have made upon his mind. He flashed her a sidelong glance, the long white fingers of his right hand toying thoughtfully with a ringlet of the dark brown hair that fell upon the shoulders of his scarlet coat.
"Surely, madam," he answered dryly, "what concerns a man may well concern his wife."
She bowed her head, her eyes upon the road before her. "True," said she, her voice expressionless. "I had forgot."
He reined in and turned to look at her; her horse moved on a pace or two, then came to a halt, apparently of its own accord.
"I do protest," said he, "you treat me less kindly than I deserve." He urged his mare forward until he had come up with her again, and then drew rein once more. "I think that I may lay some claim to--at least--your gratitude for what I did to-day."
"It is my inclination to be grateful," said she. She was very wary of him. "Forgive me, if I am still mistrustful."
"But of what?" he cried, a thought impatiently.
"Of you. What ends did you seek to serve? Was it to save Richard that you came?"
"Unless you think that it was to save Blake," he said ironically. "What other ends do you conceive I could have served?" She made him no answer, and so he resumed after a pause. "I rode to Taunton to serve you for two reasons; because you asked me, and because I would have no innocent men suffer in my stead--not even though, as these men, they were but caught in their own toils, hoist with the petard they had charged for me. Beyond these two motives, I had no other thought in ruining myself."
"Ruining yourself?" she cried. Yes, it was true; but she had not thought of it until this moment; there had been so much to think of.
"Is it not ruin to be outlawed, to have a price set upon your head, as will no doubt a price be set on mine when Albemarle's messenger shall have reached Whitehall? Is it not ruin to have my lands and all I own made forfeit to the State, to find myself a beggar, hunted and proscribed? Forgive me that I harass you with this catalogue of my misfortunes. You'll say, no doubt, that I have brought them upon myself by compelling you against your will to marry me.