when, at any rate, they served their King for loyalty instead of prudence. Yet, now, with Will Underwood here, her hopes of the Rising grew shadowy and far-away. She was not thinking of England or the Stuart; she was asking herself, with piteous appeal for help, whether her own little life was to be marred or made by this big, loose-built man whom all women were supposed to love at sight. She drew her skirts away from such intemperate, unstable love; but she had known Will Underwood long, had dreamed of him o’ nights, had shaped him to some decent likeness of a hero.

“No, you’ll not keep it. You will give it back to me. Oh, I insist!” she broke off, again with her father’s quick, heedless need to be obeyed.

He put the kerchief into her hand. “So you’re sending me a beggar to the wars,” he said sullenly.

“If you go to the wars”—she was looking wistfully at him, as if asking for some better answer to her need of faith—“you shall take it with you, Mr. Underwood.”

“You doubt me, Nance?”

“Doubt? I doubt everything these days: you, and the[19] Prince’s march from Scotland, and all—why, all I’m too tired to hope for. You do not guess how tired I am. To-morrow, may be, the wind will be quieter—and Martha will not be singing from the kitchens how Sir Harry rode over Devilsbridge and came back, without his body, to haunt the moors. Good-night, Mr. Underwood. Go talk with father of the Rising.”

[19]

Yet still they lingered for a moment. Through all her weariness—through the vague distrust that was chilling her—she remembered the day-time intimacy, the nights of long, girlish dreams, that had gone to the making of her regard for Will. It was untrue—it must be untrue—that he was half-hearted in this enterprise that was to set England free of the intolerable yoke. If Will’s honour went by the board, she would begin to doubt her own good faith.

What was passing in Will Underwood’s mind he himself scarcely knew, perhaps. He was full of trouble, indecision; but he glanced at Nance, saw the frank question and appeal in her face, and his doubts slipped by him.

“I shall claim that kerchief, Nance,” he said—“before the month is out, if Oliphant brought a true message south.”

Nance glanced at him. “Mr. Oliphant never lies. His enemies admit as much. So come for what I’ll give—if you come before the 

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