“I pray you, Madam, to have no fear,” I said, and thought within myself that never should she know of what had happened on my way thither.

“They say that her good deeds work in the end to mischief,” said Mary, “and, and—­’tis sure no good whatever can come from unlawful dealing with the powers of evil even in a good cause.  I wish the witch-woman had neither cursed thee nor blessed thee, Harry.”

I strove again to reassure her, and said, as verily I begun to believe, that the old dame’s words whether of cursing or blessing were of no moment, but presently Mistress Mary declared herself afraid of riding alone shut within her sedan chair, and would alight, and have one of the slaves lead my horse, and walk with me, taking my arm the remainder of the way.

I had never known Mistress Mary Cavendish to honour me so before, and knew not to what to attribute it, whether to alarm as she said, or not.  And I knew not whether to be enraptured or angered at my own rapture, or whether I should use or not that authority which I had over her, and which she could not, strive as best she could, gainsay, and bid her remain in her chair.

But being so sorely bewildered I did nothing, but let her have her way, and on toward Drake Hill we walked, she clinging to my arm, and seemingly holding me to a slow pace, and the slaves with the chairs, and my horse, forging ahead with ill-concealed zeal on account of that chanting proclamation of Margery Key, which, I will venture to say, was considered by every one of the poor fellows as a special curse directed toward him, instead of a blessing for me.

As we followed on that moonlight night, she and I alone, of a sudden I felt my youth and love arise to such an assailing of the joy of life, that I knew myself dragged as it were by it, and had no more choosing as to what I should not do.  Verily it would be easier to lead an army of malcontents than one’s own self.  And something there was about the moonlight on that fair Virginian night, and the heaviness of the honey-scents, and the pressure of love and life on every side, in bush and vine and tree and nest, which seemed to overbear me and sweep me along as on the crest of some green tide of spring.  Verily there are forces of this world which are beyond the overcoming of mortal man so long as he is encumbered by his mortality.

Mary Cavendish gathered up her blue and silver petticoats about her as closely as a blue flower-bell at nightfall, and stepped along daintily at my side, and the feel of her little hand on my arm seemed verily the only touch of material things which held me to this world.  We came to a great pool of wet in our way, and suddenly I thought of her feet in her little satin shoes.  “Madam, you will wet your feet if you walk through that pool in your satin shoes,” I said, and my voice was so hoarse with tenderness that I would not have known it for my own, and I felt her arm tremble.  “No,” she said faintly.  But without waiting for any permission, around her waist I put an arm, and had her raised in a twinkling from the ground, and bore her across the pool, she not struggling, but only whispering faintly when I set her down after it was well passed.  “You—­you should not have done that, Harry.”