"The soldiers," I cried, lifting my voice. The sound of it warned me; I realized that I was standing between the lamp and the window, and that if any one should pa.s.s down the street, it was my figure which would be seen. I crossed over to get behind the chair.
"Do you sit there!" said I, pointing to her former seat.
She obeyed me like a child.
"So the soldiers came here?"
"Twice."
"When?"
"The first time, that evening--I was not here--we were in the garden of Blackladies. They searched the house and took his papers away."
"His papers!" said I. I looked over to that box in which the medal had been locked. The lid was shut I crossed to it and tried it The lid lifted, the lock was broken and the medal gone.
"The second time they came," said Mrs. Herbert, "was the afternoon of the next day."
"That would be a few hours after I had escaped. They searched the house again?"
"Yes. For you."
"For me?" I exclaimed; and her eyes flashed out at me.
"For whom else should they come to search, here in my lodging?"
My eyes fell from her face.
"But did they question you?" I continued. "What did they ask? For perchance I may find help in that."
But Mrs. Herbert had relapsed into her dull insensibility.
"They questioned me without end," she answered wearily, "but I forget the questions. It was all concerning you, not a word about Anthony, and I forget."
"Oh, but think!" I exclaimed, and I heard the watchman crying the hour in the distance. I stopped, listening. The cry grew louder. The man was coming down the street. This window alone was lighted up, and once already the soldiers had been here to search for me. I heard the watchman"s footsteps grow separate and distinct. I heard the rattle of his lantern as it swung in his hand, and beneath the window he stopped. I counted the seconds. In a little I found myself choking, and realized that in the greatness of my anxiety I was holding my breath. Then the man moved, but it seemed to me, not down the road, but nearer to the wall of the house. A new fear burst in on me.
"You left the door below unlocked?" I whispered to Mrs. Herbert.
She nodded a reply.
What if he opened that door and came stumbling up the stairs? What if he found the door not merely unlocked but open, and roused the house?
To be sure he would have no warrant in his pocket. But for her sake--for the sake of that tiny chance I clung to with so despairing a grip, that perhaps--perhaps I might restore to her her husband, no rumour must go out that I or any man had been there this night I crept to the door of the room and laid my hand upon the handle. What I should do I did not think. I was trying to remember whether I had closed the door behind me, and all my faculties were engrossed in the effort I was still busy upon that profitless task, when I heard--with what relief!--the watchman"s footsteps sound again upon the stones, his voice again take up its melancholy cry.
"Quick!" said I, turning again to Mrs. Herbert "Madam, help me in this matter, if you can. Think! The officer put to you questions concerning me?"
"Oh!" she cried, waking from her lethargy, "I cannot help you. You must save yourself, as best you may. I do not remember what they said.
It was of you they spoke and not at all of Anthony."
"It is just for your husband"s sake," I said, "that I implore you to remember."
And she looked at me blankly.
"G.o.d!" I exclaimed, taking the thought "You believe that I journeyed hither to you in your loneliness at this hour, to plague you with questions for my safety"s sake!" And I paused, staring at her.
"Well," she replied, in an even voice, "is the belief so strange?"
There was no sarcasm in the question, and hardly any curiosity. It was the mere natural utterance of a natural thought. My eyes, I know, fell from her face to the floor.
"Madam," I replied slowly, "when I set out to-night, I thought that the cup of my humiliation was already full. You prove to me that my thought was wrong. It remained for you very fitly to fill it to the brim;" and again I lifted my eyes to her. "I had no purposes of my own to serve in riding hither. I know the charge against myself to its last letter. It is the charge against your husband brings me here.
Neither do I know whither he has been taken. Yet these two things I must know, and I came to you on the chance that you might help me."
I saw her face change as she listened. She leaned forward on her elbows, her chin propped upon her hands, her eyes losing their indifference. A spark of hope kindled in the depths of them, and when I had ended, she remained silent for a little, as though fearing to quench that spark by the utterance of any words. At last she asked, in almost a timid voice:
"But why--why would you know?" And she bent still further forward with parted lips, breathless for the answer.
"Why?" I answered. "Forgive me! I should have told you that before, but, like a fool, I put the questions first. They are foremost in my thoughts, you see, being the means, and as yet unsolved. The end is so clear to me, that I forgot it in looking for the road which leads to it. I believe that Mr. Herbert has been seized, on the ground that he shares my--treason, let us call it, for so our judges will. Of that charge I know him innocent, and maybe can prove him so. And if I can, be sure of this--I will."
"But how can you?" she interrupted.
"If I know the charge, if I know whither he has been taken, the place of his trial, then it may be that I can serve him. But until I know, I am like one striking at random in the dark. Suppose I go to meet the sheriff and give myself up, not knowing these things, I shall be laid by the heels and no good done. They may have taken him to London. He may be in prison for months. Meanwhile I should be tried--and they would not need Mr. Herbert"s evidence to secure a verdict against me."
"You would give yourself up?" she asked.
"But I must know the place, I must know the charge. It would avail your husband little without that knowledge. They would keep me in prison cozening me with excuses, however urgently I might plead for him. It is enough that a man should be suspected of favouring King James. To such they dispense convictions; they make no pother about justice."
"But," said she, "it would mean your life."
"Have you not said yourself that payment must be made?"
"Yes, but by us," she said, stretching out a hand eagerly. "Not by you alone."
"Madam," said I, "you will have your share in it, for you will have to wait--to wait here with such patience as you can command, ignorant of the issue until the issue is reached. G.o.d knows but I think you have the harder part of it."
We stood for a little looking into each other"s eyes sealing our compact.
"Now," I continued, "think! Was any word said which we could shape into a clue? Was any name mentioned? Was your husband"s name linked with mine? Oh, think, and quickly!"
She sat with her face covered by her hands while I stood anxiously before her.
"I do not remember," she said, drawing her hands apart and shaking them in a helpless gesture. "It all happened so long ago."
"It happened only yesterday," I urged.
"I know, I know," she said with the utmost weariness. All that light of hope had died from her eyes as quickly as it had brightened them.
"But I measure by a calendar of pain. It is so long ago, I do not remember. I do not even remember how I returned here."
There was no hint plainly to be gained from her, and I had stayed too long, as it was. I took up my hat.
"You will stay here?" I asked. "I do not say that you will hear from me soon, but I must needs know where you are."