'Margarita again--and here! By Jove! there _is_ some fatality in all this!' thought Cecil; and he spurred in advance of his party, and joined the trio, two of whom at once reined their horses back; and one of them, Ottilie, coloured very deeply, for she was not ignorant of the grotesque rumours that had been current concerning the disguise in which she had been found. 'You here, Herr Lieutenant!' exclaimed Margarita, with genuine surprise, while placing her whip in her bridle-hand, she presented the other to Cecil; 'here northward of Mount Mezlanie?' 'I am reconnoitring--and you?' 'Am _en route_ for Palenka; then via Belgrade for Vienna.' If she thought to interest him by this intelligence she failed, for he said: 'I am glad to hear that you are leaving this district, for we know not which way the tide of war may roll: and the fact of your being here without an escort is most rash, as patrols of Circassian and Egyptian horse have been seen between the Timok and the Morava!' 'We are now within ten miles of Palenka, and have seen nothing as yet to alarm us,' she replied. Palenka was in a safe district; but who could count on what might lie between? Why should he not escort her so far, when he was free to do so, as his command was a roving one? and Palenka lay on the west side of the Timok, and in the district he was to examine. Her eyes sparkled and her colour heightened as he announced his intention; and they rode slowly on together, he the while, with all the interest that he could not help feeling in her, wishing in his heart that she was safe in Belgrade, Vienna, or anywhere else than by his side. She thanked him for the proffered escort. 'Say nothing of that,' said he; 'I owe you so much more than I can ever repay.' 'You owe me a debt, I know; yet it might be best adjusted by our forgetting--as if we had never known--each other.' 'Margarita, who that has seen and known you will ever forget you?' he asked, with truth in his voice and eye. 'Many, I have no doubt.' Her manner was somewhat bitter and weary, and from under her long dark eyelashes she looked at him, from time to time, with a kind of passionate pain. 'One fact I shall never forget, at least--that you saved me from great and deadly peril, by your acumen and superior intelligence.' 'By my suspicion of Guebhard and general knowledge of his character, and of what he is capable--say, rather.' 'And thus you rendered my flight from Deligrad unnecessary.' 'Yes,' she replied curtly. On that point he said no more. She coloured for a moment at his reference to it, and then became pale again; but paleness was the normal condition of her face.