“We are stopped here.  There is no help for it.  We have gained on the Prince of Baden, who is no more than two stages ahead.  The relays which carried him from here to the next stage have only this instant come back.  They are too tired to move.  So we must stay until they are refreshed.  And we are still three posts this side of Trent!” he cried.  “I would not mind were Trent behind us.  But there’s no help for it.  I have hired a room where the Countess and her niece can sleep until such time as we can start.”

Clementina and Mrs. Misset descended and supped in company with Gaydon and Wogan, while Misset and O’Toole waited upon them as servants.  It was a silent sort of supper, very different from the meal they had made that morning.  For though the fare was better, it lacked the exhilaration.  This delay weighed heavily upon them all.  For the country was now for a sure thing raised behind them, and if they had gained on the Prince of Baden, their pursuers had no less certainly gained on them.

“Would we were t’other side of Trent!” exclaimed Wogan; and looking up he saw that Clementina was watching him with a strange intentness.  Her eyes were on him again while they sat at supper; and when he led her to the door of her room and she gave him her hand, she stood for a little while looking deep into his eyes.  And though she had much need of sleep, when she had got into the room and the door was closed behind her, she remained staring at the logs of the fire.

For she knew his secret, and to her eyes he was now another man.  Before, Wogan was the untiring servant, the unflinching friend; now he was the man who loved her.  The risks he had run, his journeyings, his unswerving confidence in the result, his laborious days and nights of preparation, and the swift execution,—­love as well as service claimed a share in these.  He was changed for ever to her eyes; she knew his secret.  There was the cloud no bigger than a man’s hand.  For she must needs think over all that he had said and done by the new light the secret shed.  When did he first begin to care?  Why?  She recalled his first visit long ago to Ohlau, when he rode across the park on his black horse charged with his momentous errand.  She had been standing, she remembered, before the blazing log-fire in the great stone hall, much as she was standing now.  Great changes had come since then.  She was James Stuart’s chosen wife—­and this man loved her.  He had no hope of any reward; he desired even that she should not know.  She should no doubt have been properly sorry and compassionate, but she was a girl simple and frank.  To be loved by a man who could so endure and strive and ask no guerdon,—­that lifted her.  She thought the more worthily of herself because he loved her.  She was raised thereby.  She could not be sorry; her blood pulsed, her heart sang, the starry eyes shone with a brighter light.  He loved her.  She knew his secret.  A little clock chimed the hour upon the mantel-shelf, and lifting her eyes she saw that just twenty-four hours had passed since she had driven out of Innspruck up the Brenner.