“Aye, dear lad; now and ever,” said I; and so I pushed him out.

After he was gone I made shift to lead the horses through the narrow passage and out by a rear door, giving them a friendly slap to point them toward the stables.

This done I went back to my immurement, and I know not how long it was that I paced a weary sentry beat up and down the narrow limits of the wine cellar, alone with such thoughts as go to make the sum of that despair which follows hard upon the heels of some climaxing catastrophe.  But I do know that, as the hours dragged on leadenshod, a slow fever of impatience came to dry the blood in my veins; to make me hunger and thirst for leave to say the final word to Father Matthieu, and so to be set at liberty to find the bottom of the pit into which a mocking fate had plunged me.

’Twas all over now.  My dear lad was told, and he had forgiven me; the persecuting, plotting factor was effaced, and he could never trouble my sweet lady more.  Between the two I loved there stood only the shadow of the marriage, and this the good priest would presently help me to dispel.

And after that ...  I dared not look beyond.  There is a way beset with lions, and any man who bears the name of man in honor may draw his sword and fix his eye upon the goal and hew his path to it, joying in the conflict.  But there is also another way, a desert trail owning no peril more affrighting than its own dread waste and limitless monotony; and when his eyes behold the dismal prospect, and his feet have pressed the hitherward sands of this desert of despair, a man may well pause to gird his loins, to cross himself and patter such a prayer for strength and fortitude as his creed hath taught him.

To such a faring through all the days and nights of this grim desert of a future these lonely hours in the wine vault were a fitting vigil, as I conceived; and when I had hugged my misery close, and a sort of monstrous self-pity had come to make a seeming virtue of the hard necessity, I was best pleased to be alone.  In such a frame of mind the sound of footsteps in the out-cellar, warning me that more company was coming, sent a wave of sullen anger to submerge me, and I do think ’twas in me to turn my back upon a friend who should come to tell me I was free to go at large.

Since I had led forth the good horses the great oaken door had stood ajar.  So I wondered why my visitor made so much ado rattling the key in the lock.  Then it came to me suddenly that the noise and delay were meant to give me timely warning; and at the scent of threatening peril—­a peril I might cope with and grapple soldierwise—­I became a man again.  A sweep of my hat sent the sputtering candle flying from its barrel head to the farther corner of the vault, and I dropped quickly behind a row of empty wine-butts to await what should befall.

Had she been a ghost, Mistress Margery would scarce have startled me more when she swung the door to let me see her.  She was gowned in her best; there was a heightened color in her cheek; her eyes were like stars.  Truly, I do think I never saw her so beautiful as she appeared at that moment, standing under the massive arch of the doorway with her candle held high to light the inner gloom.