"Watch here, while I go and fetch some water," I cried, and then seeing a pool near by, I stooped and scooped some in the hollow of my hand. When I came back, however, she was sitting up, and both women had drawn their hoods more closely around their faces. If it were Mistress Nancy, she did not wish me to recognize her. But it must be she, for who else would have gone through so much to come to me? She must have travelled with her companion some sixty miles through a lonely part of the country in order to get to Launceston, and when there must have braved all sorts of dangers in order to effect my liberty. The thought made my heart swell with such pride and joy that my bosom seemed too small to contain it. In spite of my baseness in selling myself to Peter Trevisa, she could not altogether despise me. I knew now that I had never loved the maid to whom I thought I had given my heart as a boy. My feeling for her was only a passing passion, of no more importance than chaff, and as light as thistledown. But all was different now. I was thirty-two years of age, and I had given all the strength of my life to her. True, my tongue was tied. I could not tell her of the fire that burned in my heart--I was, I knew, unworthy. By that fatal confession, as we rode by Tregothnan Gates through Tresillian, I had forever made it impossible that she could think of me as I thought of her. Besides, I was homeless and landless. Looking at her as she sat there on the dewy bank that early spring morning, I would rather have lost my right arm than take the wages of my service to Peter Trevisa. The purity and truth of her life roused within me the nobility of my race. Better be a beggar from door to door than accept the prize of base service. I who had ceased to believe in the goodness of women, now realized that this maid made me ashamed of all the past and caused to arise in me a longing for the pure and the true. But my love for her was none the less hopeless. How could it be, when I was minute by minute dogged by the memory of the hour when I promised to be a Judas? "Are you better?" I asked as gently as I could, for I knew how boorish I had become through the years. "Yes, yes; we must hasten on. We may be followed." This she said like one afraid. "But whither?" I asked. "If you would tell me your plans, your wishes, I could perchance carry them out. But you are overwrought--you need rest." "No, no, I am quite strong. I can easily ride another thirty miles," and her voice was hoarse and unnatural. "Even if you could, my horse is not fit to carry me so far," was my reply. "But you are not out of danger." "We must be thirty miles from Launceston Town," I said, "and no one could find me with ease even here. But to what spot did you intend that I should go?" It seemed strange even then that I should be following the plans of a woman; strange that a simple maid, as I believed her to be, should provide for me a safe hiding-place.