will be at his feet; my friend will be
no more a rebel, for all rebellion will have ceased to be."

"How if your friend be killed before the King reaches London?"
Halfman asked her, hoarsely. "The wheels of war do not turn from the
path of a lover."

"If he be killed," she said, simply, "I do not think I shall long
outlive him. My heart does not veer like a vane for every breath of
praise or passion. First and last, I have found my mate in the world;
first and last, I will be loyal while I live. But if he die, I hope
God will deal gently with me, nor suffer me to grow gray in sorrow."

She turned away from Halfman that he might not see the tears in her
eyes, and so turning did not see the tears that stood in his. She
moved towards the harpsichord and dropped into the chair that served
it. Her fingers fluttered over the keys and a tinkling music answered
them and underlined the words she sang:

"You ride to fight, my dearest friend,
I bide at home and sigh;
God only knows what God may send,
To test us, by-and-by.
If 'tis decreed that you must die,
So comes my world to end;
And I will seek beyond the sky
The features of my friend.
Come back from fight, my dearest friend,
The idol of my eye,
That hand in hand ourselves may bend
Before God's altar high.
If death consent to pass you by,
How sweetly shall we wend
To the last home where we shall lie
Together, friend and friend."

As Brilliana sat at the harpsichord playing the brave Cavalier
ballad, Halfman, watching her, found his eyes dim with most
unfamiliar water. Fierce memories of his life seemed to come before
him sharply, vivid succeeding pictures, rich in evil. In a flash he
tramped across forests, sack and battle and rapine new painted
themselves upon his brain; deeds long dead and forgotten suddenly
became instant agonies. He seemed like a prisoner before an invisible
judge, and his startled spirit sought wildly and vainly for some good
deed it might offer in plea for pity. If only he had spared that
girl, that child unripe for love, who never dreamed of brutal hands.
He seemed to see her in the room where he ran her down, her staring
eyes; he seemed to hear her screams; he remembered how hot his blood
was then, though now it ran like ice at the memory. If only he had
not helped to torture the old Jew in San Juan; if only he could blot
out his share in all t