Brilliana came in from the garden. Halfman heard her step and turned.
She was pale with many emotions; he never had seen her more
beautiful.
"The King has gone, friend," she said; "God bless him for his
clemency."
"My heart does not sing because a Puritan lives," Halfman answered,
sourly. He stared into the fire again and saw burning towns between
the dogs. Brilliana paused for a moment and then came a little closer
to him.
"We have ever been friends," she said, softly. There was a note of
timidity in her voice, new to Halfman, and he turned in surprise.
"Indeed," he said, roundly.
"We have been fellow-soldiers," Brilliana went on, still with that
curious hesitancy that sat so strangely upon her. "We have shared a
siege. I have a secret to tell you."
Halfman felt a sudden uncanny warning of danger. "A secret," he
repeated, staring at her.
Brilliana was outblushing all things red--peony, poppy, flamingo,
anything.
"You have always loved me, Hobbin?" she asked, half timorously.
"I have always loved you," he answered, slowly, with a rigid face.
"Then you will be glad of what I have to tell," she said. "There will
be no change here. For I love this gentleman even as this gentleman
loves me, and we are to wed when this meddling war is ended."
"You love him?" Halfman echoed, dully. "You wed an enemy to the
King?"
Brilliana sighed.
"Love is the greatest power in all the world," she said; "greater
than kings, greater than emperors, greater than popes. But I will wed
no enemy to the King. If these wars were to endure forever, then
forever my dear friend and I would remain unwed and bear our single
souls to heaven."
Her voice was low and dreary; suddenly it brightened.
"But these wars will not endure forever. The King will be in London
in a few days; the Parliament 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 those acts of lust and blood. And through all
his horrid thoughts came the sweet voice of Brilliana singing the
sweet, brave words, and he saw her curls sway as she sang, and he
thought of her love for her kinsman which she had told him so simply,
and he thought of his own mad love for her, which she would never
know, which no one would ever understand. And then he thought of that
grim sentry at the western gate whose hate was black, whose aim was
fatal.
A fantastic purpose came into the man's thought. His mind was ever
like a stage with the lights lighted and the curtains drawn, upon
whose boards himself played a thousand parts and played them to the
top. Here was the part he had never played, the noblest, the most
heroic, chiefly perhaps in this, that it was also the loneliest. The
purpose had hardly pricked before he seized it, hugged it to his
breast, made it incorporate with his being. Mingled with his tender
pity for Brilliana there was now a splendid pity for himself, the
noblest Roman of them all. But the purpose must not cool. His
thoughts were all a-jumble. One of them seemed to assert to his
feverish fancy that this way meant atonement; the quenching of his
torch some measure of compensation for the candles he had puffed
out.
Unseen he stretched his hands as if in benediction towards Brilliana,
and then went noiselessly out of the room. On the stairs he met
Evander descending to say farewell to his hostess, his hat in his
hand and his cloak over his arm. Halfman stopped him. "She waits you
in the garden-room," he said; "I will hold your cloak and hat for you
here while you make your adieus. A lover should not be cumbered."
Evander thanked him, surrendered cloak and hat, and entered the
garden-room. He did not hear what Halfman said, though Halfman spoke
it aloud, with all the lovers of all time for audience: "There goes
the blessedest man in all the world." Then, with Evander's cloak
about him and Evander's hat upon his head, Halfman went out into the
garden.
At the sound of Evander's step Brilliana turned and rose to greet
him.
"My dear!" she cried, her eyes luminous, her breast heaving.
"My riding-time has come," he said, sadly. He stood apart, but she
came near to him and put her hands on his shoulders.
"You found me in tears, but you must think of me as smiling--smiling
for joy in my lover, smiling at the thought of his return."
He caught her in his arms, clasped her close to him, and kissed her
lips. It seemed to him as if that moment consecrated him forever. She
was simply glad that the man she loved had kissed her.
"These are evil days," he said. "Who knows when we shall meet again."
"At least we have met," she answered. "I shall thank God for that,
morning and night. Nothing can change that, if we do not meet for
months, for years, if we never meet again."
"These wars must end soon," Evander said, confidently. Brilliana
caught at his hands.
"You will never hurt the King," she cried. "Promise me that. You will
never hurt the King."
"I will never hurt the King," Evander promised. "And now, dear
love--"
He could not say farewell.
There was a moment's silence as they stood facing each other, holding
hands, the woman trying to smile. The silence was suddenly, brutally
broken by the loud, clear report of a shot. Brilliana stiffened with
the start.
"What was that?"
"It seemed a pistol-shot in the garden," Evander answered.
"Who should fire now?"
"I will go see," Evander said, turning towards the open space.
Brilliana restrained him.
"Oh no, dear love, my heart misgives; there may be danger."
Evander gently released himself.
"And when are you or I afraid of danger?"
Brilliana accepted this.
"Then I go with you."
Instantly Evander paused.
"No, no," he said.
Brilliana repeated his words.
"Why, when are you or I afraid of danger?"
There was a noise of running feet in the garden, and then
Thoroughgood sped across the moat and into the room.
"Captain Halfman has been shot," he gasped.
"Oh, by whom?" Brilliana wailed, her eyes wide with horror.
"Is he killed?" Evander asked.
Thoroughgood answered both in a breath.
"Badly wounded. They bring him here."
As he spoke, Garlinge and Clupp entered from the garden, bearing
Halfman between them, wrapped in Evander's mantle.
The man of gallant carriage, of swaggering alacrity, seemed to lie
horribly limp in the men's arms. Evander hurriedly made a couch of
chairs and bade them lay their burden on it, that he might examine
the wound. Brilliana bent over him.
"Oh, my dear friend," she sobbed.
The sound of her voice seemed to awaken Halfman. He opened his eyes.
"Lift me up," he said, feebly, to his supporters. He looked at
Brilliana. "Lady, you have been deceived. Sir Randolph escaped from
his enemies. A snare was set for Captain Cloud--" he paused.
"By whom?" cried Brilliana, the woman eager for her lover.
Something like a smile came to Halfman's face.
"That I may not say. I was privy to the plot. But I walked into the
trap myself. I fear, sir, you will find a hole in your mantle."
"You wore my cloak?" Evander asked, in wonder. "You died for me?"
"Ah, why did you not warn?" Brilliana cried.
Halfman moved his head feebly.
"I did not want to live."
"But you shall live," Brilliana insisted, prayed.
Halfman laughed very faintly.
"I do not think so. I am an old soldier, and--ah!"
He gave a great gasp. Then suddenly lifted himself a little and
saluted Brilliana as if on parade.
"Here, my sweet warrior," he said, clearly. He looked fixedly at
Brilliana and declaimed, "I did hear you speak, far above singing."
Then his chin dropped; his head fell back on the supporting arms.
Evander touched him, turned to Brilliana.
"Alas! he's sped."
The only sound in the silent room was the weeping of Brilliana in
Evander's arms.