"You must not harp on a mad maid's anger. Yesterday you were my enemy, a thing of threats and treason. To-day all's different; to-day you are my guest. Soon you will ride hence, and we will, if Providence please, never meet again. But for a span of hours let us make believe to be friend and friend, till Colonel Cromwell send my cousin and your liberty." Evander was tempted to quarrel with himself for being so ready to welcome this overture. But yesterday this woman had spattered him with insults, snared him on a strained plea, bargained away his life for the body of a spy. Yesterday she had shuddered at the thought of any link of kinship between them, as she might have shuddered at kinship with a wronger of women, a killer of children, a coward. Yet to-day, as she stood there, sunshine on her hair, sunshine in her eyes, a fairy lady standing in that circle of solemn yews, he could find in his heart no regret for anything that had brought him to her presence. He would take gladly what she offered gayly, two days of friendship with so radiant a maid--and then? He left that thought unanswered to reply to Brilliana. "Madam," he said, with a very ceremonious bow, "I will pretend that we are going to be friends till the end of my life." Brilliana clapped her hands like a child that has been promised some coveted comfit. "You are brave at make-believe. In the mean time let us keep each other company a little. Surely it is dull for a man of action to be a prisoner, and for my own part I mope sadly now that my little war is well over." She had seated herself as she spoke, and she motioned to Evander to take his place by her side. When she paused he asked: "Are you so strenuous an amazon?" She answered him very earnestly: "I miss the splendid music of the siege, the stir of arms, the bustle of giving order, the alertness of expectation. I did not think a woman's life could be tuned to so high a diapason. Just think of it! Yesterday, and for many yesterdays, I was a leaguered lady, a priestess of battles; I stood for the King; existence was one fierce ecstasy. To drop from that brisk spin and whetted edge of life into this housewife's twilight is all one with being some sea-old admiral and drowning in a canal." The daughters of Israel could not have thrown more sadness into their voice, Evander thought, as they sang by the waters of Babylon. If her face was fair in animation, it seemed still more fair in sadness. "Has the Lady of Harby no employment," he asked, gently, "to spur the trudging time?" Brilliana laughed rather cheerlessly.