"O Diana--have you--nothing to--to tell me?" "You mean--to confess? No, dear." "Nothing?" I groaned. "Only to bid you not worry your dear, foolish head over trifles--" "Trifles?" I gasped, sitting up in my amazement. "Trifles?" "Silly trifles!" said she with a strange, little, tremulous laugh. "You came seeking me. You wish to make me your wife because your love is nobler, greater than you or I ever dreamed. And I am yours, and we are together at last and this--this is all that can possibly matter to us--Fourteen guineas, a florin, one groat and three pennies--was that so very much to pay for me? Do you regret your purchase?" "No." "Then--have faith in your love for me, Peregrine. Give me your hand in mine--this dear hand that fought for me and would lift poor me out of the shameful mire. And now, good night, beloved--now, shut your eyes! Are they closed?" "Yes, Diana." "Then go to sleep." And with this cool, soft hand clasping mine, I sank at last into a blessed slumber. CHAPTER V IN WHICH WE MEET OLD FRIENDS Morning with a glory of sun flooding in at the small aperture beneath the gable and through every crack and cranny of timeworn roof and walls; a glory to dazzle my sleepy eyes and fill me with ineffable gladness, despite my cuts and bruises. For a moment I lay blinking drowsily and then started to my elbow, my every nerve a-thrill to the sound of a soft and regular breathing. She lay within a yard of me, half-buried in the hay that clung about her shapeliness; and beholding her thus in the sweet abandonment of slumber, so altogether unconscious of my nearness, it was with a half-guilty feeling that I leaned nearer to drink in her loveliness. Her hair was disordered, and here and there a stalk of hay had ensconced itself in these silky ripples, and no wonder, for observing a glossy curl above her ear I had an urgent desire to feel it twined about my finger, and shifted my gaze to her face, viewing in turn her cheek rosy with sleep, her dark, curling lashes, her vivid lips, the creamy whiteness of her throat. But--even now, even as I mutely worshipped her thus, something in the voluptuous beauty of her troubled me. Memory waked, Imagination burst its shackles and began its fell work: Other eyes than mine had seen her thus ... other hands ... other lips.... Before me flashed a vision of Devereux's evil features hatefully triumphant. And yet ... Great God, was this indeed the face of a wanton? Could such horror possibly be? In imagination the dead lived again, the past returned, and through my closed lids I saw Devereux--her "slave and master" lean to gloat upon her defenceless beauty, bold-eyed and on his cruel lips the smile of a satyr.... And bowing my sweating temples between quivering fists, I ground my teeth in agony.