Clementina and Mrs. Misset descended and supped in company with Gaydon
and Wogan, while Misset and O'Toole waited upon them as servants. It was
a silent sort of supper, very different from the meal they had made that
morning. For though the fare was better, it lacked the exhilaration.
This delay weighed heavily upon them all. For the country was now for a
sure thing raised behind them, and if they had gained on the Prince of
Baden, their pursuers had no less certainly gained on them.
"Would we were t'other side of Trent!" exclaimed Wogan; and looking up
he saw that Clementina was watching him with a strange intentness. Her
eyes were on him again while they sat at supper; and when he led her to
the door of her room and she gave him her hand, she stood for a little
while looking deep into his eyes. And though she had much need of sleep,
when she had got into the room and the door was closed behind her, she
remained staring at the logs of the fire.
For she knew his secret, and to her eyes he was now another man. Before,
Wogan was the untiring servant, the unflinching friend; now he was the
man who loved her. The risks he had run, his journeyings, his unswerving
confidence in the result, his laborious days and nights of preparation,
and the swift execution,--love as well as service claimed a share in
these. He was changed for ever to her eyes; she knew his secret. There
was the cloud no bigger than a man's hand. For she must needs think over
all that he had said and done by the new light the secret shed. When did
he first begin to care? Why? She recalled his first visit long ago to
Ohlau, when he rode across the park on his black horse charged with his
momentous errand. She had been standing, she remembered, before the
blazing log-fire in the great stone hall, much as she was standing now.
Great changes had come since then. She was James Stuart's chosen
wife--and this man loved her. He had no hope of any reward; he desired
even that she should not know. She should no doubt have been properly
sorry and compassionate, but she was a girl simple and frank. To be
loved by a man who could so endure and strive and ask no guerdon,--that
lifted her. She thought the more worthily of herself because he loved
her. She was raised thereby. She could not be sorry; her blood pulsed,
her heart sang, the starry eyes shone with a brighter light. He loved
her. She knew his secret. A little clock chimed the hour upon the
mantel-shelf, and lifting her eyes she saw that just twenty-four hours
had passed since she had driven out of Innspruck up the Brenner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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