Far into the night she lay there. Her duenna would have entered, but she sent her away. Servants came with food, but she refused to eat. At last, when the reflection from the passing links no longer flashed in fiery red across her ceiling, and the sounds of the street were no longer loud or frequent, she arose, and, putting her head out of the window, looked up at the quiet stars. The cool air bathed her brow, and the tranquillity and all-pervading equality of peace helped her to her resolution. The next day, as Captain Stephen Ferrers presented himself at Mistress Clerke’s lodgings, he was given a letter. This is the cry of a soul that suffers [it ran]. I have read one by one the papers you have given me, and from them an iron resolution has been forged--forged with the warmth of passion and tempered with the wet of tears. Yesterday I was your promised wife. Unless you wish to be released, I am the same to-day. But this morning every estate that I possess, every revenue--all my fortune, in fact, down to the last penny--has been placed under the Crown, where it will remain until the rightful heir of the estates of De Bresac is found. Believe me, this decision of mine is irrevocable. If you would claim me for yourself under these new conditions, I shall still be the same to you. BARBARA. Captain Ferrers left the house in some haste. A week later he went to France upon a commission to purchase guns for the Royal Artillery. And Mistress Barbara Clerke sailed as duenna to Señorita de Batteville, the daughter of the Spanish Ambassador, to visit the señorita’s uncle, who was governor of a castle at Porto Bello, upon the Spanish Main. CHAPTER VIII THE SAUCY SALLY Monsieur Mornay and his companions made but a sorry spectacle upon the decks of the vessel aboard of which the hand of destiny had so fortuitously tumbled them. The Frenchman had lost his doublet, hat, and periwig, the blood flowed freely from a wound in his head, and his bowed figure was slim and lean in his clinging and dripping garments. The Irishman stood near, with one hand upon the Frenchman’s shoulder, watching him narrowly, fearful that in another mad moment he might throw himself overboard after his lost heritage. But Monsieur Mornay made no move to struggle further. He stood supine and subordinate to his fate. The light of battle which had so recently illumined them shone in his eyes no more. And the head which by the grace of God had been raised last night so that he could look every man level in the eyes was now sunk into his shoulders--not in humiliation or abasement, but in a silent acquiescence to the whelming sense of defeat that was his.