“Not if I can help it,” I said stubbornly.  “I want to live and I want you, and God fights on the right side.  If they do get you away, Carette, remember that if I am alive I will follow you to the end of the world.”

“They will kill you,” she repeated.

“They are very busy loading the schooner.  If the woman comes to you in the morning I shall be able to get you out.  My boat waits on the shell beach.”

“You would do better to get round to Peter Port,” she persisted.

“Torode would be off before they would be ready.  If it was one man to convince he would act, but where there are many time is wasted.  I will see you safe first and then see to Torode;” and seeing that I was fixed on this, she urged my going no more.

She gave me her hands again through the bars and I kissed them, and kissed them again and again, and would not let them go.  That which lay just close ahead of us was heavy with possibilities of separation and death, but I had never tasted happiness so complete as I did through those iron bars.  The rusty bars could keep us apart, but they could not keep the pure hot love that filled us from head to foot from thrilling through by way of our clasped hands.

“Kiss me, Phil!” she said, of a sudden.

And I pressed my face into the rough bars, and could just touch her sweet lips with mine.

“We may never come closer, dear,” she said.  “But if they kill you I will follow soon, and—­oh, it is good to feel you here!”

When the first wild joy of our uncovered hearts permitted us to speak of other things, she had much to ask and I much to tell.  I told her most of my story, but said no word as yet of her brother Helier, for she had quite enough to bear.

And, through all her askings, I could catch unconscious glimpses of the faith and hope and love she had borne for me all through those weary months.  She had never believed me dead, she said, though John Ozanne and all his men had long since been given up in Peter Port.

“Your mother and I hoped on, Phil, in spite of them all; for the world was not all dark to us, and if you had been dead I think it would have been.”

“And it was thought of you, Carette,—­of you and my mother,—­that kept my heart up in the prison.  It was weary work, but when I thought of you I felt strong and hopeful.”

“I am glad,” she said simply.  “We have helped one another.”

“And we will do yet.  I am going to get you out of this.”

“The good God help you!”

When the night began to thin I told her I must go, though it would not be out of hearing.

“Be ready the moment I open the gate,” I said, “for every second will be of consequence.  Now, good-bye, dearest!” and we kissed once more through the rusty bars, and I stole away.