I said I was fit enough, and would do whatever he thought best.  And then I took a step upon the forbidden ground.

“Falconnet is still at Appleby Hundred?” I said.

He nodded.

“And you will join the army at the front and leave Margery to his tender mercies?”

His laugh was bitter; so bitter that I scarce knew it for Richard Jennifer’s.

“Mistress Margery Stair is well, and well content, as I told you once before.  She has no wish for you or me, unless it be to see us well hanged.”

“Nay, Richard; you judge her over-harshly.  I fear you do not love her as her lover should.”

“Say you so?  Listen:  to-night I got as far as the manor house, being fool enough to risk my neck for another sight of her.  God help me, Jack!  I had it.  They have scraped together all the Tory riff-raff this side of the river—­Falconnet and the others—­and are holding high revel at Appleby.  Since it is still our true-blue borderland, they are scant enough of women of their own kidney, and I saw Madge dancing like any light o’ love with every jackanapes that offered.”

“In her father’s house she could not well do less,” I averred, cut to the heart, as he was, and yet without his younger lover’s jealousy to make me unjust.

“Or more,” he added, savagely. “’Tis as I say; she lacks nothing we can give her, and we’d as well be off about our business.”

I think he never had it in his heart to leave her in any threat of danger.  But from his point of view there was no danger threatening her save that which she seemed willing enough to rush upon—­a life of titled misery as Lady Falconnet.  I saw how he would see it; saw, too, that his was the saner summing of it up.  And yet—­

He broke into my musings with a pointed question.  “What say you, Jack?  ’Tis but a little whiffet of a Tory jade who cares not the snap of her finger for either of us.  The night is fine and dark.  Shall we float the canoe and give them all the slip?”

This was how it came to turn upon a “yes” or “no” of mine.  I hesitated, I know not why.  In the little pause the fire burned low between us, and the shadows deepened in the burrow cavern until they strangled the eye as mephitic vapors scant a man of breath.  The silence, too, was stifling.  There was no sound to breach it save the gurgling murmur of the river, and this was subdued and intermittent like the death-rattle in the throat of the dying.

I’ve always made a scoff of superstition, and yet, my dears, a thousand questions in this life of ours must hang answerless to the crack of doom if you deny it standing-room.  I knew no more than I have set down here of Margery’s besetment; nay, I had every reason Richard Jennifer had to believe that she was well and well content, lacking nothing, save, mayhap, the freedom to marry where she chose.

And yet, out of the stifling silence there came a sudden cry for help; a cry voiceless to the outward ear, but sharp and piercing to that finer inward sense; a cry so real that I would start and listen, marveling that Jennifer made no sign of having heard it.