They met at the gate of the luxuriant garden of Government House, and Miss Bishop, herself mounted, stared to see Peter Blood on horseback.  It happened that he was in good spirits.  The fact that the Governor’s condition had so far improved as to restore him his freedom of movement had sufficed to remove the depression under which he had been labouring for the past twelve hours and more.  In its rebound the mercury of his mood had shot higher far than present circumstances warranted.  He was disposed to be optimistic.  What had failed last night would certainly not fail again to-night.  What was a day, after all?  The Secretary’s office might be troublesome, but not really troublesome for another twenty-four hours at least; and by then they would be well away.

This joyous confidence of his was his first misfortune.  The next was that his good spirits were also shared by Miss Bishop, and that she bore no rancour.  The two things conjoined to make the delay that in its consequences was so deplorable.

“Good-morning, sir,” she hailed him pleasantly.  “It’s close upon a month since last I saw you.”

“Twenty-one days to the hour,” said he.  “I’ve counted them.”

“I vow I was beginning to believe you dead.”

“I have to thank you for the wreath.”

“The wreath?”

“To deck my grave,” he explained.

“Must you ever be rallying?” she wondered, and looked at him gravely, remembering that it was his rallying on the last occasion had driven her away in dudgeon.

“A man must sometimes laugh at himself or go mad,” said he.  “Few realize it.  That is why there are so many madmen in the world.”

“You may laugh at yourself all you will, sir.  But sometimes I think you laugh at me, which is not civil.”

“Then, faith, you’re wrong.  I laugh only at the comic, and you are not comic at all.”

“What am I, then?” she asked him, laughing.

A moment he pondered her, so fair and fresh to behold, so entirely maidenly and yet so entirely frank and unabashed.

“You are,” he said, “the niece of the man who owns me his slave.”  But he spoke lightly.  So lightly that she was encouraged to insistence.

“Nay, sir, that is an evasion.  You shall answer me truthfully this morning.”

“Truthfully?  To answer you at all is a labour.  But to answer truthfully!  Oh, well, now, I should say of you that he’ll be lucky who counts you his friend.”  It was in his mind to add more.  But he left it there.

“That’s mighty civil,” said she.  “You’ve a nice taste in compliments, Mr. Blood.  Another in your place....”

“Faith, now, don’t I know what another would have said?  Don’t I know my fellow-man at all?”

“Sometimes I think you do, and sometimes I think you don’t.  Anyway, you don’t know your fellow-woman.  There was that affair of the Spaniards.”

“Will ye never forget it?”