And I would be burned alive at the stake
before I would play tricks with my word or break my promise when 'twas
given. Women think they can swear a thing and unswear it, to save or
please themselves. They give themselves to a man and then repent it and
are slippery. If I had given myself, and found I had been a fool, I
would keep faith. I would play no tricks--even though I learned to hate
him. No, I will not be a woman."
And she picked up her gun and strode away, and seeing this they rose
all three by one accord, as if she were their chieftain, and followed
her.
After they were gone my lord Marquess did not move for some time, but
lay still among the gorse and bracken at his full length, his hands
clasped behind his head. He gazed up into the grey sky with the look of
a man whose thoughts are deep and strange. But at last he rose, and
picking up his gun, shouldered it and strode forth on his way back to
Dunstan's Wolde, which was miles away.
"Yes," he said, speaking aloud to himself, "I will go back and follow
his Grace of Marlborough for a while on his campaign--but in two years'
time I will come back--to Gloucestershire--and see what time has
wrought."
But to Flanders he did not go, nor did my Lord Duke of Marlborough see
him for many a day, for Fate, which had so long steadily driven him,
had ordained it otherwise. When he reached Dunstan's Wolde, on crossing
the threshold, something in the faces of the lacqueys about the
entrance curiously attracted his attention.
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