“The face in court,” avowed Vytal, as though half to himself, “and the face in the Southwark Gateway, belong to one and the same woman. I ask you outright wherefore you met me not at the ‘Tabard Inn’? Whither went the maid?” “Now there,” replied Marlowe, his eyes cast down, “_I_ must play the silent part. In truth, I know not.” “Know not?” “Nay, for when we had come safely from the porter’s lodge, she demanded that I should take her to a barge, that she might go thereby to London. We had no more than set foot within the boat, and I was questioning her as to the directions I should give the waterman, when another wherry came beside us, seemingly just arrived from across the river, and a man in that, scrutinizing us, slowly spoke to her. Then, thanking me, and bidding me thank you for that which she said was beyond all payment, she entered the wherry with the other, and was quickly conveyed toward London.” For several minutes Vytal was silent; then at last he asked, quietly, “Did the man call her by name?” “By the name of Eleanor.” “And she said no more of me?” “Yes, much, as we went toward the river; much concerning your gallantry; and from the barge wherein she sat, beside her new-found friend, she cried back to me that with all speed they would send you aid to the bridge. ’Tis evident the assistance came.” Vytal made no denial. The method of his escape was but a trifling detail of the past. He shrugged his shoulders. “’Tis well I strive not only for reward.” “Was it not reward,” asked the poet, “to look once upon that face with the eye of a protector?” “Yes,” said Vytal. “And to see her bosom heave gently to the rise and fall of the universal life-breath tide, which alone hath poetry’s perfect motion, and to note its trouble in the rhythm as in the breast of a sleeping sea—was that not recompense?” “Yes.” “And her eyes—the privilege to tell of them, to wonder vainly, and seek with all poetic fervor for words that hold their spirit—is it not invaluable reward?” “Yes,” said Vytal. “They might well,” declared the poet, “be the twin stars of a man’s destiny.” “Yes,” and the two men, standing amidships near the rail, looked at each other steadfastly, Marlowe at the last turning his gaze downward to the starlit water. It seemed to Vytal as though a spell held his eyes fixed on the poet’s face, across which the lanthorn gleams fell uncertainly, intensifying a shadow that came not only from outward causes. And the spell possessing Vytal, portended some new condition—change—tidings—he could not tell what. Suddenly Marlowe, as if by an impulse, caught his arm. “Vytal, she is there.” He pointed to the light of the fly-boat far behind. “She came aboard at Plymouth with a slim, weak-seeming fellow whom I take to be her brother, for his name, like hers, is Dare—Ananias Dare, one of the governor’s assistants. ’Twas he who met her at the bridge. Vytal, she is there.”