not share your sorrow? Did you not think to tell me you were come? Did you not see the light, did you not know there was a friend that waited for you?"
I said nothing, not being able to speak, but marvelling how she had come just in the point of time to prove me wrong to think I had no friend; and she went on,—
"Is it well for you to be here? Grieve not too sadly, for none could have died nobler than he died; and in these years that you have been away, I have thought much of him and found him good at heart, and if he did aught wrong 'twas because others wronged him more."
And while she spoke I thought how Elzevir had gone to shoot her father, and only failed of it by a hair's-breadth, and yet she spoke so well I thought he never really meant to shoot at all, but only to scare the magistrate. And what a whirligig of time was here, that I should have saved Elzevir from having that blot on his conscience, and then that he should save my life, and now that Maskew's daughter should be the one to praise Elzevir when he lay dead! And still I could not speak.
And again she said: "John, have you no word for me? have you forgotten? do you not love me still? Have I no part in your sorrow?"
Then I took her hand in mine and raised it to my lips, and said, "Dear Mistress Grace, I have forgotten nothing, and honour you above all others; but, of love I may not speak more to you—nor you to me, for we are no more boy and girl as in times past, but you a noble lady and I a broken wretch;" and with that I told how I had been ten years a prisoner, and why, and showed her the iron ring upon my wrist, and the brand upon my cheek.
