d me.

'We can manage it, sir--I think--between us.' He stepped past me,
and together we lifted his master and staggered with him to a couch,
where he lay, breathing hard.

Pascoe motioned me back to my chair, where I sat and panted.

While I sat, she came back. I did not hear her approach, but only
her voice whispering to me to come: and I followed her forth from the
room and out into the corridor, and along the corridor to the porch
as a man walking in his sleep.

There was a lantern by the porch, and in the light of it my horse
stood, saddled and ready.

'You will take the road up the valley,' she said, 'and cross by the
second bridge. The road beyond that bears due east and is
unguarded.'

'But what is this?' I asked, as I put a hand to the pommel of the
saddle and felt something hard and heavy slung there beside it.

'It is the price of the pass, or half of it. There is another bag on
the off side, and between them they hold, I believe, six hundred
pounds.'

'That was his price?'

'That was the price. And now go: take it back to your general.'

'You must help me to mount,' said I.

She helped me to mount.

'The second bridge, you will remember,' said she, as I found my
stirrups.

'I will remember. Is that all?'

'That is all: though, if you wish it, I will thank you and say that
you have behaved well.'

'I did not wish it,' said I, 'though now you have said it, I am glad.
You hate me, I understand.'

'And I thank you for understanding. Yes, you have behaved well.'

'Good-night, then, and God bless you!'

I shook rein and jogged out of the courtyard into the mirk and mist.
I never saw her again.

Not till years later did I learn that she, too, had left her
husband's roof that night and after (it cannot be doubted) many
adventures of which no history has reached me, joined the Court in
its exile at the Hague; where, as I am told, she died.

Her husband recovered and lived to accomplish his end by drink.
There were whispers against him, but no certain proof that he had
ever acted as intermediary in selling the pass. His defenders could
always urge his notorious poverty. Before his death he had parted
with more than two-thirds of his estate. There was no child to
inherit the remainder.

To the end he asserted that his wife had run from him unfaithfully,
and was pitied for it. So I hear, at least, and do not care; as I am
sure she would not have cared. She had saved his honour