Bess and Jeffray supped together in their private parlor whose windows overlooked the place where the Sussex martyrs had been burned of yore. Red damask curtains toned well with the black wood-work and the quaint old furniture that had ministered to many. The sunlight came slanting in, burning above the western downs, warming the red roofs and the timbered gables of the old town. Time seemed to step to a slow and stately measure. Bells rang mellowly, the church clocks smote the hours. From the narrow streets and passageways the murmur of voices, the rumbling of wheels, rose up not unmelodiously into the evening air. Peter Gladden waited at supper behind his master’s chair. The old man’s eyes wandered wonderingly towards Bess as she sat at the table in all the charm of her rich reprieve. The girl looked very lovely in her gay gown, with the black ribbon about her throat and a red rose thrust into the sable wreathings of her hair. She and Jeffray spoke but little, for Gladden’s presence set a restraint upon their tongues. Bess drank a glass of red wine, when Jeffray, smiling, gave her a love toast. They were happy in the quiet passing of the hour, happy in the thoughts of what had passed and what was yet to come. Jeffray accompanied Bess to the door of her bed-chamber that night, carrying her candle. He stood a moment in the dusk of the beamed passage, looking in her eyes as he bade her good-night. “Sleep well,” he said, touching her hand. “Ah—you have been so good to me.” “No, no, it is my happiness. To-morrow we shall cross the sea.” She reddened, and turned up her face adorably as though for a kiss. Jeffray saw the chambermaid moving about the room, setting Bess’s new clothes and trunks in order. He bent and touched Bess’s hand with his lips, thinking of the mysterious days that were to come. “God bless you, dear,” he said. Her eyes flashed out to him. She took the candle, smiled, and entered the room. Thus, while Bess put off her clothes amid the stately strangeness of the old inn, and suffered the chamber-woman to bind her hair, Jeffray sat at the parlor window and watched the young moon sink over the roofs and chimney-stacks of the old town. The charm of the day’s beauty stirred about him like the scent of flowers stealing up into the night. Bess would be sleeping her pure sleep for him, to rise and return, radiant and desirable with the dawn. Soon she would be his wife. The very thought of it stirred in him a strange and mysterious feeling of awe.