“He rides into Austria!” said he.  “He rides to Trent, to Brixen, to Innspruck!  And in haste.  Let us go!  I had even a fancy that I knew his voice.”

“From a single oath uttered in anger!  Nay, you are all fears.  For my part, I was afraid that he had it in his mind to stay here at this inn where my little woman lies.  What if suspicion fall on her?  What if those troopers of the Emperor find her and guess the part she played!”

“You make her safe by seeking safety,” returned Wogan.  “You are the prey the Emperor flies at.  Once you are out of reach, his mere dignity must hold him in from wreaking vengeance on your friends.”

Wogan went into the inn, and calling Misset told him of his purpose.  He would drive her Highness to Peri, a little village ten miles from Ala, but in Italy.  At Peri, Mrs. Misset and her husband were to rejoin them in the morning, and from Peri they could travel by slow stages to Bologna.  The tears flowed from Clementina’s eyes when she took her farewell of her little woman.  Though her reason bowed to Wogan’s argument, she had a sense of cowardice in deserting so faithful a friend.  Mrs. Misset, however, joined in Wogan’s prayer; and she mounted into the trap and at Wogan’s side drove out of the town by that street along which the horseman had ridden.

Clementina was silent; her driver was no more talkative.  They were alone and together on the road to Italy.  That embarrassment from which Wogan’s confession of fear had procured them some respite held them in a stiff constraint.  They were conscious of it as of a tide engulfing them.  Neither dared to speak, dreading what might come of speech.  The most careless question, the most indifferent comment, might, as it seemed to both, be the spark to fire a mine.  Neither had any confidence to say, once they had begun to talk, whither the talk would lead; but they were very much afraid, and they sat very still lest a movement of the one should provoke a question in the other.  She knew his secret, and he was aware that she knew it.  She could not have found it even then in her heart to part willingly with her knowledge.  She had thought over-much upon it during the last day.  She had withdrawn herself into it from the company of her fellow-travellers, as into a private chamber; it was familiar and near.  Nor would Wogan have desired, now that she had the knowledge, to deprive her of it, but he knew it instinctively for a dangerous thing.  He drove on in silence while the stars paled in the heavens and a grey, pure light crept mistily up from the under edges of the world, and the morning broke hard and empty and cheerless.  Wogan suddenly drew in the reins and stopped the cart.

“There is a high wall behind us.  It stretches across the fields from either side,” said he.  “It makes a gateway of the road.”

Clementina turned.  The wall was perhaps ten yards behind them.

“A gateway,” said she, “through which we have passed.”