“But why? Langton is so near. Are you afraid that another band of cavalry--cart-horse cavalry--will catch me up? Miss Demaine’s mare, that carries me, will show them light heels enough.” Sir Jasper looked at this man, whose body and whose soul were kingly, this man to whom he had entrusted many dreams and sacrifices. And the tears were in his eyes again, he knew not why. “When a man loves deep, your Highness, he fears. I ask you to let me guard the road behind you.” “You love me? After this retreat--after the cursed roads and hopelessness--you--you love me? Say it again, sir.” “What else? None ever loved a Stuart yet by halves.” The Prince tapped him gently on the shoulder. “When better days come in,” he said, “I shall make you acquainted with my Highlanders. They love as deep as you, and, knowing myself, I wonder at their blindness.” It was so they parted, wayfarers who had found leal comradeship and trust. And no momentary parting of the ways could ever sunder them again; for trust is not born among the crowded shows of life, but in the lonely byways where man meets man and finds him likeable. Sir Jasper sat in saddle at the parting of the ways, and watched the Prince go slowly up the road. The long strain was telling on him, and the bitter wind chilled all his outlook for a moment. A sense of foreboding took him unawares. It seemed that the Prince, in riding so far behind his army, was courting death; as if he preferred to be overtaken, here in England, rather than go back, a broken man, to his own land across the border. “No!” he growled, with sharp contempt of the thought. “He’s heart-sick--but no coward.” He gave a last glance up the road, as one follows a departing friend long after he is lost to sight, sighed impatiently, and turned his horse into the bridle-way that led to Windyhough. Then he reined about, suddenly aware of galloping hoofs, of the fret of horses checked too sharply on the curb, of a harsh voice that bade him halt. Goldstein’s men had tracked their quarry, day after patient day, since their first attempt at Derby to capture the Prince’s person. Three times they had found him so far behind his army that he seemed an easy prey; and three times--following what some would call a random whim, and others the guidance of the God he served--the Prince, not knowing his enemies were near, had grown tired of guarding the rear and had galloped forward suddenly to join his men and pass a jest among them. And Goldstein knew that his hold on the rough cavalry he led was weakening day by day. He had kept them to heel only by crude and persistent reminders that thirty thousand pounds, as represented by the Stuart, were worth some patience in the gaining.