"I have decided to resist our King's soldiers."
"But why here?" she repeated, clear eyes still on mine. "Tell me the
truth."
"I think it is because you are here," I said, soberly.
The loveliest smile parted her lips.
"I hoped you would say that.... Do I please you? Listen, cousin: I have
a mad impulse to follow you--to be hindered rages me beyond
endurance--as when Sir Lupus called me back. For, within the past hour
the strangest fancy has possessed me that we have little time left to be
together; that I should not let one moment slip to enjoy you."
"Foolish prophetess," I said, striving to laugh.
"A prophetess?" she repeated under her breath. And, as we rode on
through the forest dusk, her head drooped thoughtfully, shaded by her
loosened hair. At last she looked up dreamily, musing aloud:
"No prophetess, cousin; only a child, nerveless and over-fretted with
too much pleasure, tired out with excitement, having played too hard. I
do not know quite how I should conduct. I am unaccustomed to comrades
like you, cousin; and, in the untasted delights of such companionship,
have run wild till my head swims wi' the humming thoughts you stir in
me, and I long for a dark, still room and a bed to lie on, and think of
this day's pleasures."
After a silence, broken only by our horses treading the moist earth: "I
have been starving for this companionship.... I was parched!... Cousin,
have you let me drink too deeply? Have you been too kind? Why am I in
this new terror lest you--lest you tire of me and my silly speech? Oh, I
know my thoughts have been too long pent! I could talk to you forever! I
could ride with you till I died! I am like a caged thing loosed, I tell
you--for I may tell you, may I not, cousin?"
"Tell me all you think, Dorothy."
"I could tell you all--everything! I never had a thought that I do not
desire you to know, ... save one.... And that I do desire to tell
you ... but cannot.... Cousin, why did you name your mare Isene?"
"An Indian girl in Florida bore that name; the Seminoles called her
Issena."
"And so you named your mare from her?"
"Yes."
"Was she your friend--that you named your mare from her?"
"She lived a century ago--a princess. She wedded with a Huguenot."
"Oh," said Dorothy, "I thought she was perhaps your sweetheart."
"I have none."
"You never had one?"
"No."
"Why?"