I am riding to him." "To what end ?" she cried, and he saw in her face a dismay that amounted almost to fear, and he wondered was it for him.
"To place my sword at his service.

Were I not encompassed by this ruin, I should not have stirred a foot in that direction--so rash, so foredoomed to failure is this invasion.

As it is,"-- he shrugged and laughed--"it is the only hope--all forlorn though it may be--for me." The trammels she had imposed upon her soul fell away at that like bonds of cobweb.

She laid her hand upon his wrists, tears stood in her eyes; her lips quivered.
"Anthony, forgive me," she besought him.

He trembled under her touch, under the caress of her voice, and at the sound of his name for the first time upon her lips.
"What have I to forgive ?" he asked.
"The thing that I did in the matter of that letter." "You poor child," said he, smiling gently upon her, "you did it in self-defence." "Yet say that you forgive me--say it before you go!" she begged him.
He considered her gravely a moment.