I stopped him with my hand upon his shoulder. "She is one of Sandys' maids," I asserted, with deliberation, "a waiting damsel who wearied of service and came to Virginia to better herself. She was landed with her mates at Jamestown a week or more agone, went with them to church, and thence to the courting meadow, where she and Captain Ralph Percy, a gentleman adventurer, so pleased each other that they were married forthwith. That same day he brought her to his house, where she now abides, his wife, and as such to be honoured by those who call themselves his friends. And she is not to be lightly spoken of, nor comment passed upon her grace, beauty, and bearing (something too great for her station, I admit), lest idle tales should get abroad." "Am I not thy friend, Ralph?" he asked, with smiling eyes. "I have thought so at times," I answered. "My friend's honour is my honour," he went on. "Where his lips are sealed mine open not. Art content?" "Content," I said, and pressed the hand he held out to me. We reached the steps of the wharf, and descending them he entered his barge, rocking lazily with the advancing tide. His rowers cast loose from the piles, and the black water slowly widened between us. From over my shoulder came a sudden bright gleam of light from the house above, and I knew that Mistress Percy was as usual wasting good pine knots. I had a vision of the many lights within, and of the beauty whom the world called my wife, sitting erect, bathed in that rosy glow, in the great armchair, with the turbaned negress behind her. I suppose Rolfe saw the same thing, for he looked from the light to me, and I heard him draw his breath. "Ralph Percy, thou art the very button upon the cap of Fortune," he said. To myself my laugh sounded something of the bitterest, but to him, I presume, it vaunted my return through the darkness to the lit room and its resplendent pearl. He waved farewell, and the dusk swallowed up him and his boat. I went back to the house and to her. She was sitting as we had left her, with her small feet crossed upon the cushion beneath them, her hands folded in her silken lap, the air from the waving fan blowing tendrils of her dark hair against her delicate standing ruff. I went and leaned against the window, facing her. "I have been chosen Burgess for this hundred," I said abruptly. "The Assembly meets next week. I must be in Jamestown then and for some time to come." She took the fan from the negress, and waved it lazily to and fro. "When do we go?" she asked at last. "_We!_" I answered. "I had thought to go alone." The fan dropped to the floor, and her eyes opened wide. "And leave me here!" she exclaimed. "Leave me in these woods, at the mercy of Indians, wolves, and your rabble of servants!"