Remarking Sylvia's strange agitation, an agitation so strangely new-born, so different from the calm indifference and absence of all apprehension which she had testified when first he reached her, Bevill could not but wonder at the change that had come over her. For now she was but in little more danger--if any--than she had been a week past. There were, it is true, the rumours that the Allies were drawing near, that Kaiserswörth had fallen to them, that Nimeguen had either done so too or was about to do so, that Marlborough was hastening to take chief command of all the forces. Yet what mattered this! She, like every other woman in all the land, in every hemmed-in, beleaguered town and city, was safe from personal violence--safe as a child itself. "And she knew it," he thought, as he gazed at the outlines of Sylvia's face, now plainly visible in the light cast by the moon through the leafy branches of the great tree. "She knew it, and she knows it still. What is it she fears? What fear has come to her?" Suddenly he asked: "Is it Francbois you fear?" For a moment Sylvia did not answer, turning her head away instead, but saying in a whisper a moment later, "Yes." "And I have let him live--live, when I might have slain him without effort," while adding the next instant, "How can he harm you? No man can force a woman to listen to his plaint, to accede to it. And I--am I not by your side?" "Ah, yes," she whispered again, while murmuring next through closed lips some words he did not catch--words that almost appeared to sound as though they were the words "Knight" and "Sentinel." After which, speaking more clearly, Sylvia went on, "Still I would fain depart. Ah! let us go." "In spite of my protection! Through fear of Francbois?" "In fear of Francbois--yes," looking straight into his eyes, while adding inwardly, "Fear of him--for you." "But Liége, the exit from Liége, is forbidden to all except the French, since all others would avail themselves of the opportunity of divulging the disposition of their forces round the city and in the city also. It is impossible to go." "Yet you are French--are supposed to be French. You have the means wherewith to be De Belleville, the _attaché_, or Le Blond, the mousquetaire. You can baffle suspicion with your knowledge of their tongue, with your accent." "Nay; I could not baffle a true Frenchwoman, the Comtesse, whatever I may do with these Netherlanders. Neither could I deceive a mousquetaire, and Francbois knows I am an Englishman. I will not go. I will not expose you--and Madame de Valorme to the danger of travelling with me the few miles necessary, to the danger of endeavouring to pass out of Liége."