A Gentleman Player Part 25

"I know not," she whispered, as with a last remnant of departing breath.

"I am dying, I think!"

And she let her head rest on his shoulder, as if for inability to hold it erect.

"Dying!" echoed Marryott, gazing with affrighted eyes into hers; whose lids thereupon fell, like those of a tired child.

She shivered in his arms, and murmured, feebly. "How cold it is!"

"Madam!" cried Marryott. "This is but a moment's faintness! It will pa.s.s! Call up your energies, I pray! I dare not delay. Already the men are waiting for us in the court below. We must to horse!"

"To my grave, 'twould be!" she answered, drowsily. Then a spasm of pain distorted her face. She became more heavy in Marryott's grasp.

"G.o.d's light! What am I to do?" he muttered. "Mistress, shake off this lethargy! Come to the window; the air will revive you!"

He moved to the open cas.e.m.e.nt, bearing her in his arms. He feared to place her on the window-seat, lest the little animation she retained might pa.s.s from her.

She shuddered in the blast of wind.

"The cold kills me!" she said, huskily. "The snow hath a sting like needle-points!"

"Yet your face is warm!" He had placed his cheek against her forehead to ascertain this.

"It burns while my body freezes!" she replied.

"But your hands are not cold!" A tight clasp had made the discovery.

She did not move away her head, of which the white brow and dark hair were still pressed by his cheek, nor did she withdraw her hand. Neither did her body shrink from his embrace, though it trembled within it.

"I am ill unto death," was her answer. "I cannot move a step."

"But you are revived already. Your voice is not so faint now. Madam, in a few moments you will have strength to ride."

"I should fall from the horse. My G.o.d, sir, can you be a gentleman, and subject a half dying woman to more of that fatigue which hath brought her to this pa.s.s--and on a night of such weather? If my voice has strength, 'tis the strength of desperation, which impels me to beg pity at your hands in mine hour of bitter illness!"

Thereupon, as if grown weaker, she sought additional support to that of his embrace, by clinging to him with her arms.

"But, madam, do you not perceive all is at stake upon my instant flight?

A score of hors.e.m.e.n have entered Harmby; 'tis but four miles distant.

They may be here any moment. Perchance they are the pursuivant and his men; perchance, Captain Rumney, with his band augmented! We must begone!

G.o.d knows how it wounds my soul to put you to discomfort! But necessity cries 'on,' and ride forth we must!"

"Then ride forth without me. Let me die here alone."

"But I dare not leave you here. If Roger Barnet came and found you--" He did not complete the sentence. His thought was, that her account of him to Barnet might send men flying back for the real Sir Valentine. But, indeed, Marryott's continued flight, and her illness, would minimize the chances of Barnet's stopping where she was; or, if he did stop, of his waiting for much talk with her.

"An you take me with you," said she, "you may take but a cold corpse!"

The idea struck Marryott to the soul. To think of that beauty lying cold and lifeless, which now breathed warm and quivering in his arms!

"Mistress, you mistake! Your fears exceed your case! You will find yourself able to ride. I will wrap you well; I will let you ride in front of me, and I will support you. I must compel you, even as my cause compels me!"

"You would compel me to my death, to save your own life!"

"'Tis not my poor life I think of! There is that in my flight you wot not of."

"Then betake yourself to your flight, and leave me!" And, for the first time, she made some faint movement to push from his embrace.

"No, no!" he cried, tightening his grasp so that she ceased her opposing efforts. "For your own sake I dare not leave you. These riders may be Rumney and his men. If you should fall into their hands!"

"Leave me to their hands!" she cried, again exerting herself feebly to be free. "'Tis a wise course for you. If it be Rumney that hath followed, 'tis easy guessing what hath brought him. An he find me, he will cease troubling you."

"Madam, madam, would you be left to the will of that villain? Know you--can you suppose--?"

"Yes, I know; and can imagine how such villains woo! But what choice have I? I cannot go with you. Would you drag me forth to meet my death?

But that you cannot do, an you would. Here will I remain, and if you go you must leave me behind."

And, with an effort for which he was quite unprepared, she thrust him from her, and slipped from his somewhat relaxed embrace. The next instant she traversed, with wavering motions, the distance to the chest.

Upon this she let herself fall, and straightened her body to a supine position.

When Marryott ran to her side, and tried to lift her, he found her so rigid that nothing short of violently applied force could place her upon horseback, or keep her there afterward.

A moment later a spasmodic shiver stirred her body, and she uttered so pitiful a groan that Marryott could no longer hold out against the conviction--which he had thus far resisted, as one hopes against hope--that she was indeed beyond all possibility of taking horse that night. Having, perforce, admitted to himself her condition, he ran and closed the cas.e.m.e.nt, then returned to her.

"Madam, what am I to do?" he asked. "'Tis plain that a brief delay would find you no more able to go than you now are. For such illness as hath laid hold of you, after so long exposure, I well know one recovers not in an hour. If I tarried at all for you, it would needs be a long tarrying."

"Then tarry not," she moaned. "Go, and leave me."

"If I left men to protect you?"

"Ay, my page Francis! The boy would avail much against Rumney and the score of men you say are at Harmby!"

"If I left, also, the men who joined us from Rumney's band?"

"Why, those that are wounded would sure stay by me, for want of power to run away! And the other four might stay till they caught sight of their old leader. Then they would have choice of turning tail, or of crawling to him for pardon, or of dying, either in my defence or for his revenge."

"If I left Captain Bottle and Anthony Underhill with them?"

"Certes, if this score of men be the pursuivant's, 'tis better for you that your two faithful dogs die as your accomplices, and you go safe alone!"

"Madam, I deserve not this irony! I say to you again, 'tis not for mine own life that I would leave others to die on my account without me. 'Tis for Sir--for the qu--for the cause to which I have bound myself, and of which you know not. My G.o.d, I would this were to-morrow's night! Then you would see how fearful I am for my life! But for another day, my life is not mine own!"

The woman to whom he spoke paid no heed to words whose significance she did not understand.

"Then why do you stay here?" she said. "Is it of my asking? Do I request aught of you? Go, and take your men with you. You may have need of them."

"That is true," thought Marryott, appreciating how much easier it was for the pursuivant to follow a trace left by three men than that left by one.

"Your two henchmen are stout fellows, I ween," she went on, speaking as with difficulty, "but scarce like to use much zeal in my behalf. I'll warrant that Puritan would not stir for me, were you not here to command him."