Still, I feel
something like a coward to-night."
"Why?"
"I am wondering whether I ought to have left Lenfield. It is probable
that, had I remained, I should have been arrested, perhaps hanged on the
nearest tree without trial or question; but, since I am free, my
presence in the West might do something to help these poor folk who will
most certainly suffer bitterly for the rebellion."
"What can you do?"
"Truly, I do not know. Assist a few miserable wretches to escape from a
brutal soldiery, perhaps--that is all I can think of; but I may see
other ways of helping once I am back again. Cannot you advise me? A
woman often sees more clearly than a man."
"To advise well, one must know more," said Barbara. "Of you I know
little, except what I have heard, and, truly, that would give me a poor
opinion of you."
"You have said that you did not believe it."
"Still, you have told me nothing to strengthen that belief," she
returned quickly. "There is something more than merely a woman's
curiosity in this, for, truly, I am set in the midst of difficulties.
Listen! That is Martin on the stairs."
"It is not your will that I leave Aylingford to-night, then?"
"It is poor weather to start upon a journey.
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