" To him I added, "This is Mistress Waynflete, whom I have the honour
to serve."
He bared his head and bowed. "And whom I hope to have the honour of
serving too."
I looked at him curiously. All other emotions had faded from his face
now, but it was clear that her peerless and now so helpless beauty had
appealed home to him.
"Sir," she said, recovering herself with a great effort, "I am pleased to
make your acquaintance. And now,"--speaking to me,--"since you have given
me a great fright and made me behave like a milkmaid rather than a
soldier's daughter, perhaps you will tell me what has happened, and how
it"--she looked over my shoulder--"comes to be lying there. I heard shots
and shrieks that turned me to stone. What has happened?"
"Master Wheatman," said our new acquaintance, taking my words out of my
mouth, "is hardly likely to give you a reasonably correct account. Allow
me to be the historian of his fine conduct." He told the story with
overmuch kindness to me, and as he told it the colour came back to her
face, and she was herself again. While he was telling it, I noticed for
the first time, or rather for the first time gathered its meaning, that
she had run out after me without the domino, and in the biting air she
might easily catch a chill.
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