Of what these looks and words and hand-clasps meant to Margery I had no hint.  But in my hours of sanity, when I would pass these slippings in review, I could recall no answering flash of hers to salt the woundings of the conscience-whip.  So far from it, it seemed, as this sweet comradeship budded and blossomed on the stock of a better acquaintance, she came to hold me more as if I were some cross between a father or an elder brother, and some closer confidant of her own sex.

You are not to understand that she was always thus, nor over-often.  More frequently that side of her which I soon came to call the mother’s was turned to me, and I was made to stand a target for her wit and raillery.  But she was ever changeful as a child, and in the midst of some light jesting mood would sober instantly and give my age its due.

In some of these, her soberer times, I felt her lean upon me as my sister might, had I had one; at others she would frankly set me in her father’s place, declaring I must tell her what to say or do in this or that entanglement.  Again, and this came oftener as our friendship grew, she would talk to me as surely woman never talked to any but a kinsman, telling me naively of her conquests, and sparing no gallant of them all save only Richard Jennifer.

And of Dick and his devotion she spoke now and then, as well, though never mockingly, as of the others.  Nay, once when I pressed her on this point, asking her plainly if my dear lad had not good cause to hope, she would only smile and turn her face away, and say that of all the men she knew the hopeful ones pleased her best.  So I was thus assured that if it were a scale for love to tip, my lady’s heart would fall to Richard.

Now I took this to be a hopeful sign, that she would tell me freely of these her little heart affairs; and seeing her so safe upon the side of friendship, held the looser rein upon my own unchartered passion.  So long as I could keep my love well masked and hidden what harm could come to her or any if I should give it leave to live in prison?  None, I thought; and yet at times was made a very coward by the thought.  For love, like other living things, will grow by what it feeds upon, and once full-grown, may haply come to laugh at bonds, however strong or cunningly devised.

With such a fever in my veins it was little wonder that my wound healed slowly.  As time passed by, with never a word of news from the world without—­if Margery knew aught of the fighting she would never lisp a syllable to me—­and with Gilbert Stair still keeping churlishly beyond the sight or sound of me, I fretted sorely and would be gone.

Yet this was but a passing mood.  When Margery was with me I was not ill-content to eat the bread of sufferance in her father’s house, and angry pride had scanty footing.  But when she was away this same pride took sharp revenges, getting me out of bed to bully Darius into dressing me that I might foot it up and down the room while I was still unfit for any useful thing.