Her face was as sad as before.
Miles sprang forward, with a happy confidence, to meet her, but
she checked him with a hardly perceptible gesture, and he stopped
where he was. She seated herself, and asked him to do likewise.
Thus simply did she take the sense of old comradeship out of him,
and transform him into a stranger and a guest. The surprise of
it, the bewildering unexpectedness of it, made him begin to
question, for a moment, if he WAS the person he was pretending to
be, after all. The Lady Edith said–
“Sir, I have come to warn you. The mad cannot be persuaded out of
their delusions, perchance; but doubtless they may be persuaded to
avoid perils. I think this dream of yours hath the seeming of
honest truth to you, and therefore is not criminal–but do not
tarry here with it; for here it is dangerous.” She looked
steadily into Miles’s face a moment, then added, impressively, “It
is the more dangerous for that you ARE much like what our lost lad
must have grown to be if he had lived.”
“Heavens, madam, but I AM he!”
“I truly think you think it, sir. I question not your honesty in
that; I but warn you, that is all. My husband is master in this
region; his power hath hardly any limit; the people prosper or
starve, as he wills. If you resembled not the man whom you
profess to be, my husband might bid you pleasure yourself with
your dream in peace; but trust me, I know him well; I know what he
will do; he will say to all that you are but a mad impostor, and
straightway all will echo him.” She bent upon Miles that same
steady look once more, and added: “If you WERE Miles Hendon, and
he knew it and all the region knew it–consider what I am saying,
weigh it well–you would stand in the same peril, your punishment
would be no less sure; he would deny you and denounce you, and
none would be bold enough to give you countenance.”
“Most truly I believe it,” said Miles, bitterly. “The power that
can command one life-long friend to betray and disown another, and
be obeyed, may well look to be obeyed in quarters where bread and
life are on the stake and no cobweb ties of loyalty and honour are
concerned.”
A faint tinge appeared for a moment in the lady’s cheek, and she
dropped her eyes to the floor; but her voice betrayed no emotion
when she proceeded–
“I have warned you–I must still warn you–to go hence. This man
will destroy you, else. He is a tyrant who knows no pity. I, who
am his fettered slave, know this. Poor Miles, and Arthur, and my
dear guardian, Sir Richard, are free of him, and at rest: better
that you were with them than that you bide here in the clutches of
this miscreant. Your pretensions are a menace to his title and
possessions; you have assaulted him in his own house: you are
ruined if you stay. Go–do not hesitate. If you lack money, take
this purse, I beg of you, and bribe the servants to let you pass.
Oh, be warned, poor soul, and escape while you may.”
Miles declined the purse with a gesture, and rose up and stood
before her.
“Grant me one thing,” he said. “Let your eyes rest upon mine, so
that I may see if they be steady. There–now answer me. Am I
Miles Hendon?”
“No. I know you not.”
“Swear it!”
The answer was low, but distinct–
“I swear.”
“Oh, this passes belief!”
“Fly! Why will you waste the precious time? Fly, and save
yourself.”
At that moment the officers burst into the room, and a violent
struggle began; but Hendon was soon overpowered and dragged away.
The King was taken also, and both were bound and led to prison.
Chapter XXVII. In prison.
The cells were all crowded; so the two friends were chained in a
large room where persons charged with trifling offences were
commonly kept. They had company, for there were some twenty
manacled and fettered prisoners here, of both sexes and of varying