"Possible!" cried Cicely in a voice of scorn and fury. "Why, thou little fool, ’tis the man’s profession to spy and snare and betray us. Oh! Barbara, how could you be so rash, so wicked? Now ’tis too late to save him." Barbara roused herself. "Nay, Cicely, I will not believe that of him. I have his promise. He is a hard man, but he will assuredly keep his word; he would never betray my trust." "Oh, thou art bewitched by his fair words. Nay, speak not to me. I will go pray, ’tis all that is left for me now." Sobbing bitterly she left the room. Barbara sat upright in her chair, clenching the arms with her hands and gazing straight before her. "An he dare to do it?" she murmured under her breath. Then she sprang suddenly to her feet. "He _shall_ not do it," she cried. "I must to the village—there is no other way. And yet,—sure,—nay, I cannot. Bah! I have shamed myself once before him, what matter an I do it once again!" *CHAPTER VIII* Captain Protheroe strode thoughtfully up and down his room at the Inn, puffing furiously at his pipe and staring at the floor. On his return from his interview with Barbara he had found awaiting him an order to proceed at once to Taunton, and in the yard without he could hear his men still busy with preparations for their early start on the morrow. But though wearied in body with his long day’s work the captain felt no inclination for sleep, and, his thoughts still busily occupied with the events of the past few hours, he passed the time pacing his room. His promise once given, he was not the man to waste many regrets upon what was passed, yet as he thought over the affair his brows puckered into a frown, and he ground the stem of his pipe savagely between his teeth. To wink at the escape of a rebel was indeed no great matter in those days. He knew well to what extent corruption and bribery were rife among his fellow officers and how few would hesitate to allow a rebel to slip through their hands could they thereby help to line their pockets. From the Lord Chief Justice downwards the custom was openly practised. Even the Queen’s maids of honour, delicate women whose sensibilities were wrung by the death of a beetle, and who would have swooned at the idea of crushing a moth, even they openly trafficked in pardons, and complained bitterly when the life ransoms extracted from the impoverished friends of the prisoners failed to satisfy their demands. But hitherto Captain Protheroe had prided himself upon keeping his fingers clean amid such general corruption, and it enraged him to feel that at last he too had succumbed. Not indeed for a bribe’s sake, but because a woman believed him worthy of her trust and his pride would not allow him to betray it. But was it in truth for that reason alone? Might not it also be because the woman was possessed of a pair of wonderful eyes and knew how to use them?