"Quite ready!" replied the lad, cheerfully, as he prepared to follow the soldiers. He gave his sister a look of joy and hope, for he was going to temporary imprisonment only; within a few moments perhaps his safety would be assured. Lady Patience Gascoyne, in virtue of her rank and position, could easily obtain an audience of the Duke of Cumberland, and in the meanwhile the letters proving Philip’s innocence would have been laid before His Royal Highness. No wonder that as the lad, marching light-heartedly between two soldiers, passed close to Jack Bathurst, he held out his hand to his brave rescuer in gratitude too deep for words. "Are you ready, sir?" quoth the Sergeant now, as he turned to Beau Brocade. But here there was no question of either joy or hope: no defence, no proofs of innocence. The daring outlaw had chosen his path in life, and being conquered at the last, had to pay the extreme penalty which his country demanded of him for having defied its laws. As he too prepared to follow the soldiers out into the open, Patience, heedless of the men around her, clung passionately, despairingly to the man who had sacrificed his brave life in her service, and whom she had rewarded with the intensity, the magnitude of her love. "They shall not take you," she sobbed, throwing her protecting arms round the dearly-loved form, "they shall not ... they shall not..." The cry had been so bitter, so terribly pathetic in its despair, that instinctively the soldiers stood aside, awed in spite of their stolid hearts at the majesty of this great sorrow; they turned respectfully away, leaving a clear space round Patience and Bathurst. Thus for a moment he had her all to himself, passive in her despair, half crazed with her grief, clinging to him with all the passionate abandonment of her great love for him. "What? ... tears?" he whispered gently, as with a tender hand he pressed back the graceful drooping head, and looked into her eyes, "one ... two ... three ... four glittering diamonds ... and for me! ... My sweet dream!" he added, the intensity of his passion causing his low, tender voice to quiver in his throat, "my beautiful white rose, but yesterday for one of those glittering tears I’d gladly have endured hell’s worst tortures, and to-day they flow freely for me.... Why! I would not change places with a King!" "Your life ... your brave, noble life ... thus sacrificed for me.... Oh, why did I ever cross your path?" "Nay, my _dear_," he said with an infinity of tenderness, and an infinity of joy. "Faith! it must have been because God’s angels took pity on a poor vagabond and let him get this early glimpse of paradise."